1 Thursday, 5 February 2004

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 2.21 p.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Madam Registrar, could you call the case,

6 please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. This is the Case Number

8 IT-99-36-T, The Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you, Mr. Brdjanin. Can you follow

10 the proceedings in a language that you can understand?

11 THE ACCUSED: [No Interpretation]

12 JUDGE AGIUS: I did not receive interpretation, and I am on

13 number 4.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. I can follow the

15 proceedings in a language I understand.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay, thank you. I take it there are no problems

17 with the interpretation. No? Are there any problems with the

18 interpretation? I'm not asking you, Mr. Brdjanin. I think I better stop

19 it here because it's getting complicated.

20 Appearances, Ms. Korner. If at any time, Mr. Brdjanin, you can't

21 follow the proceedings in your own language, please draw my attention.

22 Appearances for the Prosecution.

23 MS. KORNER: Denise Gustin, case manager, Ann Sutherland, and

24 Joanna Korner. Good afternoon, Your Honours.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you. Appearances for the Radoslav

1 Brdjanin.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Good afternoon, Your Honours. My name is John

3 Ackerman. I'm the lead counsel for Mr. Radoslav Brdjanin. Also present

4 in this Courtroom are my esteemed colleagues David Cunningham from

5 Houston, Texas, and Aleksandar Vujic from Belgrade, former Yugoslavia.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Good afternoon to you, too. I

7 understand there's a preliminary.

8 MS. KORNER: Only one, Your Honour. Your Honour will recall some

9 time ago, I think we were required by Your Honours, or somebody, to supply

10 copies of all the documents referred to by Mr. Brown in his report, but

11 not specifically exhibited, so we've done that. They are on a set of CDs,

12 four in all, which we will hand up. Mr. Ackerman has already got his set.

13 And if somebody can come and collect them. And can I make the whole set

14 attached to the exhibit that was the report, it will be P2416.2. .1 was

15 already the correction that Mr. Brown made, and if anybody wants to use

16 them and give them a separate exhibit number later, that can be done.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. The sooner we finish this case, the

18 better, Ms. Korner, Mr. Ackerman, because I'm running out of space in my

19 Chamber. I haven't got any more space where I -- to put documents, this

20 case and other cases. It's becoming impossible.

21 Thank you, Ms. Korner. Anything else before we usher the witness

22 in? Yes, usher, you could escort the witness, please. It's a good thing

23 you're using this medium because otherwise it would become even more

24 impossible with the documents that come in in this case, and in other

25 cases. It's...

1 MS. KORNER: Well, I think the ICTY must have destroyed at least

2 two or three rainforests during the course of its existence.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: The only other case in my life when I had this was a

4 big bank fraud case that lasted three months. You know, I had a room full

5 of documents obviously.

6 [The witness entered court]

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Good afternoon to you, Professor Shoup.

8 THE WITNESS: Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I see that you have a problem with a binder that you

10 should have but you don't.

11 THE WITNESS: I don't. It's not urgent, but I don't know what the

12 procedures are since I'm not supposed to be in contact with the Defence

13 attorney. But I did leave something over there on Monday, and I'm just

14 passing you a note.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Who is Mr. Hackworth?

16 THE WITNESS: Here, John.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm Mr. Hackworth.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: You are Mr. Hackworth?

19 Professor Shoup is informing me that he has left a 61-page binder

20 in your office, and he would like to have it back.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: With Your Honours permission, I would have it

22 delivered to the desk at his hotel.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Any objection, Ms. Korner?

24 MS. KORNER: No, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

1 So good afternoon to you, Professor.

2 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: And welcome back. We will be proceeding with your

4 examination-in-chief.

5 THE WITNESS: Yes, of course.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Your direct. May I just remind you that you're

7 still under oath.

8 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: And Mr. Hackworth or Ackerman will --

10 THE WITNESS: Oh, my, I'm hopeless.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Will be putting some further questions.

12 Mr. Ackerman.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you very much, Your Honour.

14 WITNESS: PAUL SHOUP [Resumed]

15 Examined by Mr. Ackerman: [Continued]

16 Q. Good afternoon, Professor. How are you today?

17 A. Yes, you can call me any name you wish.

18 Q. Okay. We have a ways to go as you know. I need you to have -- I

19 hope you have brought with you the notebook that has the exhibits in it.

20 A. Yes, I think so. No, I didn't. But... I expect that I have

21 questions that will be asked from the exhibit notebook?

22 Q. Yes.

23 A. It's not here.

24 Q. We'll still get there. It's just going to take us quite a bit

25 longer. I need you to be shown an exhibit, DB195, please. And we don't

1 have them in the courtroom even?

2 JUDGE AGIUS: I do have. If it helps -- if it assists you in

3 proceeding faster, usher, please.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I really think in terms of getting

5 through this, it's going to be a lot faster if we take like a 15-minute

6 break and let Professor Shoup -- his hotel is just across the street. Let

7 him go over there and get the document and bring it back. I think that

8 will actually save us time in the long run.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Are you going to use the documents that you

10 indicated?

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: They are available here, and I can let him have

13 mine. We are share, Judge Janu with me, and Judge Taya, with me, and we

14 can proceed without losing any minutes.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Okay, we can try it.

16 THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you. I am familiar with this document.

17 MR. ACKERMAN:

18 Q. The document you have before you, sir, is DB195. It is a regular

19 combat report, JNA 5th Corps command, 26 March 1992.

20 A. That's right.

21 Q. The only portion of that document that I'm interested in bringing

22 to your attention is on the second page under "state of morale"?

23 A. That's right.

24 Q. You will see the language, "All unanimously believe that

25 withdrawal of the JNA from Bosnia-Herzegovina should not be allowed at any

1 price."

2 A. Mm-hmm.

3 Q. That's the end of what I'm interested in.

4 A. Yes, thank you.

5 Q. The question I have about that is to you, in terms of your

6 knowledge of what was going on in March in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to you,

7 what significance, if any, does that passage have?

8 A. Thank you. The date of this document, as I understand it, is

9 March 26th, 1992, prior to the outbreak of the war on April 6th and 7th.

10 This to me is really a cry of pain, in a way, because these are soldiers

11 who have probably been fighting in Croatia up until that time and have

12 now -- they are part of the 5th Krajina Corps, I assume, of the JNA and

13 are now back in Bosnia. Most of these soldiers will have been from Bosnia

14 proper because by this time the JNA has been reorganised in such a fashion

15 that those soldiers who are in Bosnia will be from Bosnia.

16 There are others in the ranks of the JNA at this point, and I

17 think there probably are some Muslims as well. And the question that

18 arises is, are these units going to serve to try to maintain stability and

19 peace in Bosnia, or are they there to actually participate in some kind of

20 a coming conflict, on the one side, that is in this case on the side of

21 the Serbs themselves. I frankly cannot tell you when they say they want

22 to stay in Bosnia whether they're thinking either in the first way or in

23 the second way, and my guess is that they are thinking both ways at the

24 same time. They want peace and stability in Bosnia, as most people did;

25 on the other hand, they are ready to use their weapons as they used them

1 against the Croatians, if necessary, against an enemy of the Serbs.

2 That's as far as I can go with that particular document.

3 Q. All right.

4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, just before we go on.

5 THE WITNESS: Yes.

6 MS. KORNER: I would ask Mr. Ackerman and the witness that -- to

7 explain, the witness, when he's speculating, as he clearly is here, in our

8 submission, or when he's actually basing what he has to say on some

9 knowledge that he has, from other documents or other sources. Because at

10 the moment, I would object to this on the grounds it seems to me to be

11 pure speculation.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Professor Shoup, you've taken the message.

13 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have. I would say this is not pure

14 speculation. There's a statement here that these people want to remain in

15 Bosnia. Their motives are mixed. That is speculation, but it's not

16 speculation in terms of my knowledge of the region and the people. It's

17 very clear they want to stay there, some of them to defend the Serbs in

18 the case of an upcoming war, probably some who are Muslim to serve as a

19 stabilising force. I don't think this is off the top of my head, so to

20 speak.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

22 MR. ACKERMAN:

23 Q. The next document I want you to look at is Exhibit P80, please.

24 A. Thank you.

25 Q. I want to draw your attention to Article 35 of this document.

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Now, you know from our earlier conversations that this document is

3 the statute of the Autonomous Region of Krajina adopted on 16th September

4 1991. And the one portion I want to bring to your attention is the second

5 paragraph of Article 35 which reads: "Decisions and conclusions of the

6 Assembly shall become binding for the associated municipalities once they

7 have been approved by the assemblies of municipalities."

8 Again, based on your knowledge of the political culture of former

9 Yugoslavia, does that particular portion of this document surprise you in

10 any way?

11 A. It does, and it does not. The political culture in Yugoslavia

12 under Tito and the organisation of State organs under the Titoist regime

13 and in Bosnia placed a great deal of stress on the municipalities, that

14 is, the opstinas, they had a great deal of power. And I think as

15 testimony goes forward, we shall see that in this period of confusion

16 within Bosnia, the municipalities acquired even greater power locally. To

17 the point where it's quite possible here, and I will say that I am

18 speculating for the sake of the Prosecutor, because I don't know -- it's

19 not based upon my knowledge of this particular region --

20 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that's, I'm afraid, the point I am

21 making.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, you are right, Ms. Korner.

23 MS. KORNER: I object to evidence --

24 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no, you are right.

25 MS. KORNER: -- which is based on speculation. Anyone can

1 speculate.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: I accept that. I agree. You don't have to go any

3 further with the objection. I agree.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Professor Shoup, please restrict yourself to

5 assessments and conclusions that you can base on evidence and on facts,

6 but not on speculation.

7 THE WITNESS: I understand. All right. I will just simply then

8 conclude as far as Article 35 is concerned is that what this seems -- no,

9 what it says really is that decisions of the Autonomous Region of Krajina

10 will have to be approved by the municipalities. This does seem to be, and

11 this is not speculation, very much in accord with the way the political

12 system was structured in a Titoist system.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour --

14 Q. Well, Professor Shoup, first of all, the place we're going to next

15 is some passages from your book that I want to ask you about.

16 A. Yes, certainly.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: I need the usher's assistance. I have a document

18 I'd like the usher to -- Your Honour, I had several copies of these in my

19 briefcase yesterday which are still in my briefcase from yesterday, which

20 is not here. But I have a copy that I want to give to Ms. Korner because

21 I'm going to refer to this document. But I'm not going to use it as an

22 exhibit.

23 MS. KORNER: Is this the book?

24 MR. ACKERMAN: No, don't give it to the witness; give it to

25 Ms. Korner.

1 Q. Sir, with regard to your book, I just want to begin that process

2 by referring to a review of your book that I've just handed Ms. Korner.

3 A. Yes, mm-hmm.

4 Q. It's written by Stjepan G. Mestrovic of Texas A&M University.

5 What he says in part of his review is this: "While Burg and Shoup's

6 exceedingly well documented analysis leaves more questions than

7 answers --"

8 THE INTERPRETER: Will the counsel please read more slowly, thank

9 you.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, I will. I'm sorry.

11 You've got the only copy that I brought, but I can assure you that

12 it's there somewhere. I'm not making this up.

13 Q. "While Burg and Shoup's exceedingly well documented analysis

14 leaves more questions than answers, if all sides were guilty, if the war

15 was mostly local, and if leaders were not in firm control of chains of

16 command or policy, then the implications of speaking about ideas of ethnic

17 cleansing and genocide in this region seem problematic. The reader walks

18 away from this book feeling that chaos reigned, whereas crimes against

19 humanity seem to require some degree of order and clear intent."

20 Would you say this is a fair analysis of your book?

21 A. Let me start my comments by saying that that book has been

22 introduced as evidence, and so the Court itself will be in a position to

23 judge your question as well as I am from their impressions of the book.

24 I was somewhat amused by this comment when I read it in the review

25 because I had a feeling that Mr. Mestrovic was seeking very clear answers

1 to problems in Bosnia, and especially to know who was the good guy and who

2 was the bad guy. And when he didn't find them, he was rather upset. And

3 I must say that this has often been the reaction that we've had to the

4 book itself.

5 By way of sort of consoling Mr. Mestrovic, I don't think there is

6 anything in this book that suggests that policies of ethnic cleansing, for

7 example, were ones that were devised solely at the local level. We speak

8 of how the Serbs, for instance, carried out ethnic cleansing. We never

9 say this was simply done at a whim. We don't even hint at that. And you

10 will see that as the analysis in the book goes forward, we are identifying

11 the motives of the leaders very precisely, be it Karadzic or be it

12 Izetbegovic. And in effect, in doing so, attributing to them the policies

13 that then transpire.

14 Finally, let me just say briefly that so much of the book is

15 devoted to the interplay between the international community on the one

16 hand and these leaders on the other. And we treat these leaders as though

17 they were, in effect, speaking for their particular parties or their

18 particular points of view. I think in doing that, we probably

19 oversimplify the splits within different parties and within different

20 groups. I will end by just saying that some of the material hat we have

21 access to now, the CIA reports and things like this, show a far greater

22 degree of differences within these groups than Professor Burg and I were

23 aware of at the time we wrote the book.

24 Q. Just kind of a follow-up question, did you find any difference in

25 the degree of organisation depending upon the level of the structures that

1 you were looking at?

2 A. Perhaps you could clarify that question, if you could give it --

3 give me a more precise example of what you're referring to.

4 Q. I think you just said that the interplay between the international

5 community and the leaders --

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. -- appeared to be -- I don't think these are exactly your words,

8 but well-organised. I'm wondering if you found that kind of organisation

9 at lower structural levels, at the opstina level, for instance?

10 A. I would hesitate to say we did or we did not. Those of you who

11 know the book now know that for the most part we were not dealing with

12 events at that level. I think that I will just have to pass on that

13 particular question.

14 Q. All right. I want to go then to your book, DB1, at page 17.

15 A. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

16 Q. If we look at page 17, about two-thirds of the way down the page.

17 A. Yes, sure.

18 Q. I just want to refer you to the following language: "But it was

19 the breakup of Yugoslavia that opened the door to war by forcing the

20 question of self-determination of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its respective

21 nationalities. Bosnia's violent past did heighten fears and produced the

22 mentalities that collapsed communal solidarity over mutual reconciliation.

23 But if Yugoslavia had survived and the issue of self-determination had not

24 arisen, or if the dissolution of Yugoslavia had been managed by

25 international and domestic actors in a manner that resolved the conflicts

1 between republics and nations peacefully, the ethnic communities of Bosnia

2 would in all likelihood have continued to live in peace."

3 A. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

4 Q. That -- I'm wondering if you can elaborate a bit on that passage,

5 because it tends to be quite conclusory?

6 A. Well, it contains several different points here. One is the fact

7 that Bosnia's violent past, as it we put it here, gave rise to fears that

8 if war came to Yugoslavia, or if the question of Yugoslavia's existence

9 came up, that Bosnia would be prone to civil war. We will probably have

10 occasion in the future to discuss this question of this sort of political

11 and social and cultural nature of Bosnia's past, and I don't want to

12 perhaps dwell on it right now.

13 I should say that that fear, that if Yugoslavia broke up and if

14 there was a violence, that Bosnia would break up was one that was well

15 known. There was a report issued by the Central Intelligence Agency of

16 the United States in 1990 which made it very clear that this would be the

17 fate of Bosnia. In fact, it almost predicted that such a civil war was

18 certain. So that on that front, the fear that something terrible could

19 happen in Bosnia, we all, I think -- all of us who knew Yugoslavia

20 anticipated that such a thing could happen.

21 On the second point that's made here, that if Yugoslavia had

22 survived and the issue of self-determination had not arisen, that the

23 ethnic communities of Bosnia would have in all likelihood lived in peace

24 reflects a point that I make in the report, and perhaps it's not necessary

25 to go into this very deeply, we can come back to it, and that is that the

1 relationships between the ethnic communities in Bosnia depended in a

2 crucial way upon the presence of a Yugoslav state to which both the

3 Muslims and the Serbs of Bosnia felt loyalties. I think this is an easy

4 concept to understand, and we don't have to really go back over that.

5 Q. All right, Professor.

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. We both have to remember to go a great deal slower --

8 A. Sorry.

9 Q. -- because --

10 A. I'm deliberate, but not slow.

11 Q. -- they are trying to keep up with you --

12 A. Sorry. Fine, okay.

13 Now, the final point here, I think, and then I will be open to

14 more questions is simply that -- and I think it's a terribly important one

15 at the end of the paragraph, we note that the nationalist leaders faced

16 few obstacles to their efforts to play upon fear, to mobilise ethnic

17 solidarity, and thereby to orchestrate the dissent into violence that

18 produced catastrophe for their peoples. Why was it that they didn't face

19 the opposition that one might anticipate? I think this will come up in

20 the questioning, but I would want to say simply this much, and that is

21 that the demise of Yugoslavia was a tragic situation for the Bosnians. It

22 left them with choices that they did not want to make, especially the

23 choice of independence or not. Because faced with that choice, all types

24 of problems then arose, including the national question about which we'll

25 speak, and the nationalist leaders were then perfectly poised to take

1 advantage of that situation. I think that's maybe as far as I'll go for

2 the moment.

3 Q. Well, then, that leads very naturally to my next question, which

4 you'll find raised by a passage on page 5 in the book in the introduction,

5 which you called the second major contest unleashed in Bosnia by the

6 disintegration of Yugoslavia was over the national question. This term is

7 commonly used throughout Eastern Europe, applied to all aspects of

8 interethnic relations, but its most important element concerning defining

9 the right claim, titular or state constituting status usually reserved for

10 the majority ethnic group and defining the rights that accrues to others,

11 minority ethnic groups." You talk there about the national question, and

12 I think again that's a matter that can use a little bit of elaboration.

13 A. Thank you. Yes. Using the term national question in the context

14 of the disputes in Yugoslavia is very intentional and very important.

15 When we talk about the national question usually as political scientists,

16 we mean the relationship between the nation and the state and the

17 constitutional issues that arise in this connection. As we mention here,

18 the question of which ethnic community or which nation is the titular

19 nationality, that is the one after which the state may be named and

20 therefore enjoys certain privileges. The question of the rights of

21 minorities, the question of who has the right to, for example, secede from

22 the country. Now, that we would distinguish from the notion of an ethnic

23 dynamic, rivalries between ethnic groups, let's say, in a village or

24 ethnic communities or communal riots. These all are ethnic relationships.

25 And I will also make a distinction in the course of my discussion, I

1 think, between ethnic rivalries and a lesser distinction, that is, between

2 cultural differences such as existed among the peoples of Bosnia.

3 Now, the point that I would like to make, it's my own personal

4 observation, but I think it will be borne out here in the course of our

5 testimony, is this: That the national question, the question of whether a

6 particular ethnic community had the right to enjoy independence, for

7 example, or to claim the right to be the titular nationality was the

8 driving force behind the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and actually

9 although ethnic rivalries were a great problem in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the

10 national question was also the driving force behind the dissolution of

11 Bosnia itself. That is, the disputes within Bosnia in this particular

12 case of whether there should be a Bosnian state or there should not,

13 whether the Serbs should have the right to secede -- with the Croatians

14 and so forth. And I'll close on this note: It's important to understand

15 that in Tito's Yugoslavia and in Tito's Bosnia, relations among the ethnic

16 communities were not ones of bitter enmity. There were memories of

17 past -- violent clashes during World War II, and we'll talk about that.

18 But what introduced the question of ethnic rivalries and uncertainties was

19 the national question, that is, the secession of Slovenia, the secession

20 of Croatia, and then what followed, the question of should there be a

21 Bosnia or should there not? Therefore, I think the national question as I

22 have just tried to explain what I conceive of it as is to be paramount and

23 central to the whole discussion here about the dissolution of Yugoslavia

24 and Bosnia.

25 Q. I want to follow up on something you just said. You said the

1 question of should there be a Bosnia or should there not.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Was that ever an actual question and was that ever a matter of

4 debate, as to whether or not there should be a Bosnia?

5 A. Oh, yes, of course it was a matter of debate. In a sense it

6 always has been, simply because Serb and Croat nationalists from the turn

7 of the 19th century onward always felt that Bosnia, in fact, was either

8 Croatian or Serbian. During World War II, as you know, the Croatian

9 Ustasha fascist government annexed all of Bosnia because they felt it was

10 part of Croatia. And similarly now, the question of whether there should

11 be a Bosnia after Yugoslavia was dissolved was certainly not one that one

12 could just assume as settled. Obviously the Serbs in Bosnia had a

13 different concept; that is, that they had the right to secede. They

14 weren't concerned about what was left, but they certainly felt they didn't

15 belong in Bosnia.

16 Q. Were there any meetings or discussions or anything of that nature

17 that could have led to the disappearance of Bosnia? I mean, did people

18 sit and talk about that? I mean, people in leadership positions.

19 A. I can't answer that in this -- in -- except to say that the issue

20 for the Serbs and for the -- for one group of the Croatians, of course,

21 was secession from Bosnia. If the Bosnian Muslims chose to still call

22 what was left Bosnia, you know, there was no objection to that. I'm not

23 quite sure that anyone was trying to claim at any point that Bosnia had

24 disappeared. By way of contrast, with Yugoslavia where the Badinter

25 commission said you know that Yugoslavia is in a state of dissolution,

1 although Bosnia had effect ceased to exist by 1991, I would suggest.

2 Q. All right. Let's go back now to Chapter 2 where we started.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: What do you mean to say when you say: "Bosnia had

4 in effect ceased to exist by 1991, I would suggest"?

5 THE WITNESS: Well, let me make the point as concisely as I can

6 because I think we'll come back to it. From 1989, as far as I can judge,

7 onward, there was an increasing mobilisation of each of the ethnic

8 communities behind their own leaders, and in certain parts of Bosnia by

9 1990, the writ of the government didn't run. For example, in the Western

10 Herzegovina, which in effect had set up its own little mini state. Then,

11 after the elections in Bosnia in December of 1990, and now we're back --

12 we're in January of 1991 roughly. There was a competition between the

13 various ethnic parties within a state itself, that is, the government of

14 Bosnia in Sarajevo, and at the local level. The consequence of that was

15 almost a paralysis of Bosnia. Now, this is an event that has not been, I

16 think, adequately examined or researched, and so I'm not going to tell you

17 that it was true in every case and in every place in Bosnia. I have

18 quoted in my report some observations about how Bosnia in effect had

19 become paralysed by this time because of the ethnic clashes within it. If

20 you interpreted my remarks to mean that legally Bosnia had ceased to

21 exist, no, I didn't mean that.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

23 MR. ACKERMAN:

24 Q. But functionally.

25 A. Functionally it had ceased to exist.

1 Q. Okay. Chapter 2, page 16, you begin the chapter basically with

2 this statement: "For most of its history." And I'm not asking for a long

3 answer here

4 A. Sure.

5 Q. "For most of its history Bosnian society had been deeply segmented

6 with Muslims, Serbs, and Croats organised into distinct communities." I

7 do want you to talk about that briefly.

8 A. Sure. Let me answer that question in two ways. By the end of the

9 communist era, roughly 45 years of rule under the communists, many of the

10 distinctions which had been part of the life of Bosnia prior to that time

11 had been leveled between classes and groups. And so one could say that

12 some changes, really very fundamental changes, had taken place in Bosnia.

13 Nevertheless, the residue of those earlier social relationships, cultural,

14 economic, political, which divided the ethnic communities from earlier

15 eras still lingered on in part. Bosnia was, however, segmented in another

16 fashion under the Titoist regime. And I want to make this point because

17 it will come up, I think, in the course of our discussion. It was

18 segmented because it was only a partially developed republic. The

19 differences between the urban and rural areas in Bosnia in the 1990s were

20 extreme. It's really remarkable, for example.

21 Bosnia was segmented by different regions with different

22 traditions, and I make a point of that in the report. Furthermore, you

23 would find that, let's say in perhaps not so much in Bosnia but in

24 neighbouring Croatia, but this is a phenomena I think the Court should

25 consider, the effects of World War II led to different waves of settlers

1 in, let's say, a village where the Germans had left. And there was a term

2 for these new settlers who came. They were quite different from the old

3 settlers. Now, this is a segmentation of a new kind, of course. But the

4 reaction when the crisis came in 1991 and 1992 was far different between

5 the old settlers and the new settlers to the crisis and to the war. So it

6 was the new settlers who had come from Bosnia and Croatia who were the

7 spearhead of the war itself.

8 I've talked longer than you wanted me to, but I do feel that it's

9 important to note that there's a sort of new kind of set of differences

10 that are at work here before the war breaks out.

11 Q. I was just sitting here feeling very glad that I had asked for a

12 short answer.

13 A. What the long answer might be like. All right. I'll be more to

14 the point.

15 Q. Well, we do have a time within which we probably need to finish.

16 A. Sure.

17 Q. So let's try to -- if I want you to elaborate on an answer, I'll

18 tell you. But let's try to keep the answers a little bit shorter if we

19 can.

20 A. Sure.

21 Q. On the next page, right before the quote we started with --

22 A. Excuse me, could you tell me the page.

23 Q. Page 17. Right before the quote we started this discussion with,

24 you say this: "The violent history of Bosnia must be taken into account

25 if one is to understand the war and the course it took." Now just very

1 briefly, why? Why do you have that --

2 A. All right, I will be brief. This has been an object of

3 discussion -- a problem that people have discussed. Noel Malcom and

4 others have said, no, it wasn't violent. But first of all, we have to

5 consider the impact of World War II. It has an immense impact on people

6 because of the massacres that took place at that time, even genocide.

7 Most of the people here in the Court know that and I don't have to go into

8 that any further.

9 Secondly, I do think when you talk about the violent history of

10 Bosnia that you should take into account that it was an area under the

11 Ottoman Empire and under the Austrians where the military frontier

12 separated -- or at least under the Ottoman Empire separated the Austrian

13 Empire from the Turks, and this is an area where people lived with the

14 gun, as you know, and this was not just something that one imagined.

15 In this connection, then I'll stop after this, in my report on

16 page 44, 45, I think, there is an account, a brief account, of a feud that

17 took place in Medjugorje, and I think you probably know what I mean. It's

18 an account that was done by a Dutch anthropologist. The viciousness of

19 that feud is absolutely startling, and this was between two Croatian

20 families. It was not ethnic. Not only were they trying to get even with

21 each other, they were hanging each other by their necks, they were

22 slashing each other's throats and so forth. So one can see that there is

23 a cruelty in this rural region of the -- at least in Western Herzegovina.

24 Now, I'll almost stop and say one thing. I do think you just have to be

25 careful not to use this as an explanation for everything that happened.

1 Q. All right. One of the perhaps dilemmas, let me preface the

2 question by asking you this: We've all heard of I think almost at

3 sufficient length, if not at sufficient length about what happened in

4 Bosnia and in the Bosanska Krajina area during World War II. What was the

5 situation between the ethnic groups living in that area in Bosnia, let's

6 say, by 1953? Eight years after World War II.

7 A. I was not in that area in 1953, so I have been in Bosnia a few

8 years later, of course, so I can talk -- if we can talk more generally

9 about it. I don't want to pretend that I was in Banja Luka at that

10 particular time. But --

11 Q. Let me put the question --

12 A. If you can put the question a little differently.

13 Q. A little bit differently. Was there anything about the way the

14 Tito regime was structured that affected the relationships between the

15 ethnic groups following World War II?

16 A. Oh, absolutely. I was in Yugoslavia and briefly in Bosnia in 1952

17 and 1953 as a student. And this was a time when Yugoslavia's prestige was

18 at an all-time high. Tito was worshipped by all of the Yugoslavs. And

19 the ideology of the regime was overwhelming. People believed that

20 Yugoslavia was representative of the future of socialism, they believed in

21 brotherhood and unity, at least in their everyday life. This was a time

22 when international student groups were always coming to build highways and

23 this kind of a thing in Yugoslavia. There was a great optimism in the

24 country. And I think there was a feeling that those nationalist rivalries

25 had been defeated, at least for the moment. That doesn't mean that people

1 themselves had changed fundamentally underneath. That was the other thing

2 you could observe, as I observed myself. They were fundamentally still

3 Serbs, Croats, Muslims, whatever. There was this deep ethnic identity

4 that they still retained.

5 But the republic rivalries had not yet begun. If you choose 1953,

6 this was a very optimistic time.

7 Q. What happened to all the people who basically led the violence in

8 World War II, the extreme nationalists. Were they still there in 1953?

9 A. Yes, they were. And I as a student met them. Chetniks who would

10 come up to and me and want to talk to me about what they had done during

11 World War II. They were there. However, I must say that the leaders

12 themselves were not there. They had been arrested, they had been

13 executed. But you could meet on the streets very easily, and I did very

14 often, you know, persons either in Croatia who had been very violently

15 nationalist or in Serbia. It gave you a rather spooky feeling.

16 Q. But overlying all of it, there seems to have been a peace that

17 differs from what we see today in Bosnia. Do you agree with --

18 A. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely.

19 Q. And we are nine years after the war now. Why is it different now

20 than it was in, like, 1953, eight years after the Second World War?

21 A. Certainly. Let me simplify the answer to two points. First of

22 all, I go back to the point I made earlier. The Bosnians were satisfied

23 with their place within Yugoslavia. First of all, they had -- and this

24 was for the Muslims important, a republic of their own. But more

25 importantly, all the Slav Muslims that were within Yugoslavia and so were

1 all of the Serbs. They were comfortable with the constitutional

2 arrangements of that time, and they all genuinely idolised Tito. So this

3 was extremely, extremely important, you see. The other point was that

4 they felt secure. This was a very tough, harsh regime. In Serbo-Croatian

5 you say "cvrsta ruka". You mean firm hand. And that feeling of security

6 was something that was important above all, even in a small village in

7 Krajina or anywhere else, people felt secure. And that you could testify

8 to by going back there yourself and seeing it. And this was -- these are

9 the two things that are lacking now, of course.

10 Q. The Chamber has heard from a number of people from Bosnia that

11 with regard to the places they come here from, the villages they were

12 living in at the time, that everyone was getting along well between the

13 ethnic groups, that relations were good, that in many cases there were

14 mixed marriages.

15 A. That's right.

16 Q. That people were attending each other's ethnic celebrations.

17 A. That's right.

18 Q. And that the relationships were good between the people. And the

19 question that sort of cries out, I think, from that is how could things

20 have deteriorated so rapidly when the war broke out in 1991?

21 A. All right. First of all, I think it helps to realise that things

22 were not perfect in Tito's Yugoslavia, that rivalries were developing

23 between the republics over economic investments and things of this nature.

24 For example, up until the mid-1960s, Kosovo was actually a police state

25 under Serb control. If anyone had gone down to Kosovo and gotten an

1 authentic reply from an Albanian, they would have told you that they were

2 living under a police state at this time.

3 Splits and fissures within the Yugoslav system were developing

4 already. I noticed that when I was there in the 1950s and 1960s. The

5 point was that this did not at the time affect the daily lives of people,

6 going about their own affairs. And as long as they felt secure and as

7 long as there was a one-party system which would disperse jobs and

8 investments according to some kind of a key along ethnic proportional

9 lines, people in their daily lives, you see, were not perhaps so aware or

10 didn't care really what was going on among the leaderships and so on.

11 This was true all the way up until the outbreak of the war in 1990 and

12 1991. That's why it took people so much by surprise. Many people just

13 were not keyed in to what was really going on among the leaderships

14 themselves.

15 Q. If we go to page 40 of your book, there are a couple of passages

16 that speak to the subject we have been talking about here for the last few

17 minutes. In the first full paragraph after the first sentence: "The

18 ability of the communists to transform Bosnia-Herzegovina into a model of

19 multiethnic, multicultural coexistence after the war was more surprising.

20 The reasons must be sought, above all, in the authoritarian nature of the

21 communist regime which exercised absolute control over the ethnic

22 communities in Bosnia."

23 Then if we skip down a ways: "The remarkable success of the

24 communists in consolidating power in Bosnia must therefore be attributed

25 both to their draconian methods in eliminating the nationalists after the

1 war and the compatibility of their political message with the underlying

2 pro Yugoslav orientation of significant segments of the Bosnian

3 population."

4 Just briefly comment on those passages.

5 A. I will be brief because I think this is precisely the point that I

6 have been trying to make up until now. These were the twin pillars of

7 stability within Bosnia. On the one hand, a regime that was repressive

8 but assured people that they were safe. And the other was the

9 constitutional arrangements which suited the Bosnians perfectly, that is,

10 a Yugoslavia overseeing Bosnia and responsible for it.

11 Q. I had asked you a bit earlier because I'm still baffled by the

12 difference between 1953 and 1994. If you look at the next page, page 42,

13 the beginning of the last paragraph on that page: "Public manifestations

14 of national intolerance were ruthlessly suppressed by the communist

15 regime." Where that was the case after World War II, it's not the case

16 today, is it?

17 A. No, we come back once again to the feeling of deep insecurity that

18 people felt as the war broke out in Bosnia and of course which has now

19 become something different. With ethnic cleansing now, these regions in

20 Bosnia are homogeneous. They don't feel insecurity within their own

21 enclave or entity, but they do feel insecurity as far as the future of

22 their own enclave or entity is concerned.

23 Q. That leads, then, to the next question I want you to talk about.

24 We have been speaking about a certain rigidity that existed during the

25 communist era. All of a sudden, Yugoslavia comes out of that rigidity and

1 holds multiparty elections. What effect did that prior rigid system have

2 on the efforts that then had to be made to try to share power between

3 these what became ethnically based parties?

4 A. I think we're referring to Bosnia, not Yugoslavia.

5 Q. Yes.

6 A. This is important. Bosnia was -- had a reputation during the

7 Titoist period of being the most doctrinaire and rigid republic within

8 Yugoslavia. They did not allow any kind of a dissident movement such as

9 in Croatia -- not in Croatia so much, but in Slovenia or even in Belgrade

10 where intellectuals were quite independent by the 1980s. The consequence

11 of that was that political differences were pretty much kept out of the

12 public eye. Infighting did occur within the communist party of

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late 1980s, and it had a very destructive effect

14 on the party, but it was not something that translated itself into a

15 dynamism of change and reform. Perhaps the more important point is that

16 there was never a dissident movement in Bosnia which could have reached

17 over the ethnic barriers, you know, in an effort to establish more freedom

18 or respect for human rights and so on. If there had been such a movement,

19 such as in Slovenia, for example, perhaps when the elections came you

20 would have seen a more powerful reform party which included all of the

21 three ethnic communities as gaining support -- at least in the urban areas

22 of Bosnia.

23 Finally, just a simple point on that, is because of that rigidity

24 within the Bosnian regime, they simply were not ready when it came after

25 the elections to learn the art of how to accommodate one another. It was

1 a winner take all kind of situation, really. They had never learned any

2 other way of doing things in politics.

3 Q. And as we get into the Netherlands institute materials, I think

4 we'll see some examples of that.

5 At the time that the League of Communists was basically coming

6 apart, and it looked like there were going to be the development of a

7 multiple multiparty system, was there any concern regarding the danger of

8 ethnically based parties being established?

9 A. In Bosnia? Yes, there was.

10 Q. In Bosnia.

11 A. Yes, of course there was. And the first reaction of the League of

12 Communists of Bosnia-Herzegovina was to try to hold snap elections before

13 such parties might form, and then to pass an electoral law which banned

14 national parties from participating in the elections. Both of these

15 efforts failed. We perhaps don't have to go into detail as to why that

16 happened right now. And again, just simply to observe very broadly, I

17 think there was a real dread, a real terrible fear among these --

18 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please slow down for the

19 benefit of the interpreters. Thank you.

20 THE WITNESS: Thank you, yes. There was a real fear of what would

21 happen, you know, if all of a sudden elections were simply dominated by

22 national groups.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

24 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, I did raise this yesterday but all

25 of this has been dealt with and effectively Professor Shoup is saying more

1 or less the same thing in Dr. Donia's report, in his evidence. If you

2 look at page 26 of Dr. Donia's report, it's all there, slightly less --

3 more summary form. But is there really a necessity for us to go through

4 this all over again? To Your Honours -- really the question is, do Your

5 Honours feel you're being assisted by listening to this again?

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Korner, I better not say too much, to be frank,

7 because there were moments, especially yesterday when I was doubting

8 whether we were dealing with the Brdjanin case or some other case. So I'm

9 being very patient because that's in my style, not to disrupt much at this

10 stage. But we could restrict the questions and the answers to what is

11 pertinent to this case, I think we will move ahead quick and in a more

12 pragmatic manner.

13 THE WITNESS: I'll try to be brief.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I leave it in the hands of Mr. Ackerman. I think he

15 knows exactly pretty well what I mean.

16 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Q. I want to go now to page 63 of your book.

19 A. Mm-hmm.

20 Q. And we're now in Chapter 3, which is entitled "The Descent into

21 War." There are a couple of -- there are about three things there that I

22 want to refer to and have you talk a little bit about. You say that --

23 and I'm right at the bottom of page 63, the last few lines.

24 A. Yes, that's right.

25 Q. "The government in Sarajevo became to be largely under SDA

1 control. Since Bosnia-Herzegovina was a highly centralised state, the

2 danger was real that SDA and the Muslim ethnic community would effectively

3 shut out the other ethnic communities from power, at least at the level of

4 the central government." Now, how is it that the SDA, that the government

5 in Sarajevo was able to be controlled, as you say, at this stage by the

6 SDA?

7 A. All right. I think maybe this oversimplifies the situation. I'll

8 be brief again. But this is the period between the elections of December

9 1990 and April 4th of 1992 when Izetbegovic, in effect, declares

10 mobilisation and the Serbs leave Sarajevo. After April 4th of 1992,

11 there's no question about who is in charge. What I'm saying here is that

12 the traditions in Bosnia were such that centralised government called the

13 tune. And the Serbs had every reason to think that -- that the Bosnian

14 government would fall under Muslim control. Let me just give you an

15 example of what you mean, and I'll be brief about it.

16 First, all of the opstinas of Sarajevo had a majority of Muslims,

17 except one, Pale. And so the -- as the struggle for power at the

18 municipal level went forward, of course the Muslims gained control of

19 these different opstinas. But secondly, and more important, if you look

20 at the record in the spring of 1992 before April 4th, you see that

21 Izetbegovic as president is acting in effect for the government of Bosnia.

22 He's making decisions. And this -- although there's a collective

23 presidency of seven people, the others really are shut out completely.

24 And in dealing with the international community and in other respects,

25 dealing with the JNA, the army and so forth, it is Izetbegovic who is

1 speaking for the government of Bosnia. But just briefly, the other point

2 is the fear that the Serbs had, that centralised government is --

3 traditionally a centralised government would ultimately just leave them

4 out in the cold.

5 Q. The very next passage, then, speaks about what was going on at the

6 same time outside Sarajevo.

7 A. Sure.

8 Q. You say that: "The Serb SDS consolidated its power where the

9 Serbs were a majority. On the eve of the war in spring of 1992, there

10 were reports that the SDS had purged local governments in Serb-majority

11 areas and was insisting that the tangible assets of the community be

12 divided among the ethnic communities."

13 A. That's right.

14 Q. When you speak about the assets of a community being divided, what

15 kind of assets are you talking about?

16 A. Well, you know, again, I'm not -- I wasn't watching all of this

17 happen in person. But you could by reading the newspapers at the time get

18 some idea of what was going on. First of all, one of the favorite targets

19 would be the local gas stations, you know, things that had some kind of a

20 municipal -- were dependent upon the municipality and were there for easy

21 things to divide among the various people, various kiosks, or even things

22 as simple as that. But more importantly, I think, was the fact that the

23 entire socialist sector that fell under the control of the municipality, a

24 factory, maybe, maybe a very important factory, was either under the

25 control of the local government or was slated for eventual privatisation.

1 And everyone knew that the party that could control the local government

2 could then control who was going to end up with that particular enterprise

3 or whatever it might be at any given point.

4 And finally, you have such things as the local newspapers, the

5 local -- if there was a TV station, these as well were all up for grabs.

6 Q. So, putting it in classic terms, there were a lot of spoils to go

7 to the victors?

8 A. Of course. And I haven't even mentioned the posts within the

9 municipal government itself, which were always a bone of contention, how

10 many -- how many -- which party would get to monopolise those jobs. This

11 was a very, very tense, difficult kind of confrontation that went on

12 between the ethnic communities within a given municipality.

13 Q. In the next sentence I think you try to give an example of this

14 process:

15 "In Gorazde, the Muslim SDA began a process of weeding out Serbs

16 from responsible positions. According to Serb accounts, the Muslim mayor

17 of Gorazde set to work polarising relations between the ethnic

18 communities. His efforts were opposed by an ethnically mixed committee of

19 intellectuals who tried to contain ethnic tensions in the town.

20 Nonetheless, by the third week of March, Gorazde was a divided city

21 crisscrossed by barricades."

22 A. That's right. That account was based upon what we knew when we

23 wrote --

24 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please make pauses between

25 question and answer. Thank you very much.

1 THE WITNESS: That passage that you read was written back in

2 1988 [sic], 1999, Professor Burg and I had access to certain documents.

3 We indicate where we got our information. And I would simply say that

4 that has been confirmed, our view of this situation, by a much more

5 detailed analysis of the situation in Srebrenica and Gorazde by Professor

6 Duijzings' contribution to the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation

7 study. The two accounts parallel each other. So I think that that

8 description is quite accurate.

9 MR. ACKERMAN:

10 Q. I think I want to go now to your report, Professor. Talk about it

11 for a while.

12 A. Sure.

13 Q. I think as we begin to talk about your report, I think it might be

14 helpful for you to tell the Trial Chamber how you approached the task of

15 preparing your report in this case.

16 A. Yes. As the Court has seen, this material in the report is drawn

17 first and foremost from the book, highlighting and condensing points the

18 made there about the history of Bosnia. The second thing that I attempted

19 to do was to introduce materials from newly published sources, which are

20 very important for the Bosnian conflict. And those are basically three,

21 the most important of which is the Netherlands Institute for War

22 Documentation study which, of course, an immense study and it's only

23 available in English in an electronic fashion. So I had to take things

24 selectively from that which I thought might be most interesting to the

25 Court.

1 The second new source of great importance is the two-volume study

2 by the CIA called "Balkan Battlegrounds", and the third is a book by Gow

3 on Serbian policy towards Bosnia which I wasn't able to use very much; it

4 simply didn't work out as well as I had thought.

5 The second -- the next thing that I wanted to do was to raise

6 certain issues that I knew were contentious or should be discussed by the

7 Court, and that's why I have done this, discussing such things as the

8 responsibility for ethnic cleansing and the nature of the war, nature of

9 ancient hatreds, drawing on some of the sociological and anthropological

10 literature. And especially I would focus, I would say, on the question of

11 the victimisation strategies which I don't think has ever been discussed

12 before in a scholarly fashion and simply introduced the subject itself, If

13 you looked at the report, you will know what I am referring to.

14 I do want to just say one more point, make one more point about

15 the report, and that is that there is a problem in the scholarly world,

16 first of all, that if we become too interested in presenting every side of

17 the case, that somehow we are getting to the point where we are not

18 blaming anybody for anything. And I just want to make clear absolutely

19 hat this was not my intention certainly, and if we are going to deal with

20 ethnic conflicts where there is usually a problem of exceeding or breaking

21 norms of international behaviour on both sides, we just have to get used

22 to this fact that we can't identify one side as the good side and one as

23 the bad side.

24 And finally, just one point in the report, I suggest that we all

25 really have to become comfortable with the Balkans. We can't pretend that

1 the Balkans are not the Balkans. I say that because I think there is a

2 tendency in the scholarly world, and I even see it in the Dutch report to

3 pretend that this -- what was happening in this region is somehow, well,

4 it happens everywhere; no, we all are prone to violence and so on. And I

5 just think the Balkans has a unique history, we have to understand it, and

6 we have to come to terms with it, without in any way relaxing our

7 standards and criteria of what would be considered to be acceptable

8 behaviour in any conflict.

9 Q. Let's go, then, to page 3 of your report. The top of the page.

10 You say: "The place to begin is with Yugoslavia. The country was,

11 despite its initial successful in uniting the south Slavs, beset by a

12 number of contradictions. The first was the inherently unstable and

13 perhaps contradictory nature of the contract, if we may call it that,

14 among the peoples who were linked in a common state. The second, the

15 authoritarian means which were employed to paper over these ambiguities

16 both before and after World War II, and the third, failure to create a

17 common state ideology for the south Slav peoples comprising Yugoslavia."

18 Now, we've talked already today about the first two of those to

19 some extent, I think. But the third of those we've not, and there are

20 contradictions here, and I will invite you to comment on those, but not at

21 great length, please.

22 A. By the third, you mean the failure to establish a Yugoslav

23 ideology?

24 Q. Yes.

25 A. Mm-hmm. I will be brief. Professor Donia -- I'm a political

1 scientist. Professor Donia is a historian. He has probably spoken to

2 these matters. There was at the turn of the century a genuine and

3 authentic pro-Yugoslav sentiment in the south Slav lands. And that

4 contributed to the creation of the Yugoslav State. If you read Rebecca

5 West's book, "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" you will meet some individuals

6 in that book who genuinely believed in Yugoslavia as such. Then in 1929

7 when the dictatorship was established by King Aleksandar, you also see,

8 although with a Serb angle if we can put it this way, an effort to try to

9 preserve Yugoslavia as a state, as a notion which had substance beyond and

10 above the national feelings of each of the major nationalities.

11 I would not like to go further except to say that that effort was,

12 again, made by the communists after World War II. It failed in the

13 1960s. My first book on communism and the national question talks about

14 that failure. And with your permission, I would just like to read what I

15 think is a very poignant remark by Tito. This is in the 1960s about the

16 fact that people don't feel like themselves as Yugoslavs. But with your

17 permission.

18 Here, he is. This is in 1963 after his efforts to try to make

19 people think like Yugoslavs failed. And he says to his fellow party

20 members, he says: "There are even people who don't dare call themselves

21 Yugoslavs," he says. And then he goes on: "I have received these days

22 quite a few letters just in connection with this question of nationality,

23 and mostly from children. Children understand what I am talking about.

24 One little girl from Macedonia, student in the fourth or fifth grade whose

25 father is a Slovenian and mother is a Macedonia has written me, saying she

1 is happy she can now be called a Yugoslav. Look, comrades, a little

2 girl. She wrote it in her own hand. That shows you better than anything

3 how absurd it is to force someone to belong to a nationality, Serb, Croat,

4 or Slovene." And of course he is pleading in vain for people to begin to

5 think like Yugoslavs.

6 Q. Let's go now to page 5.

7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

8 MR. ACKERMAN:

9 Q. Let's go now to page 5 of your report.

10 A. I see.

11 Q. I think it might be helpful to the --

12 THE INTERPRETER: Please slow down, thank you.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you. That's what we're doing

14 Q. It might be more helpful to the people in the booth if after I ask

15 you a question, you just wait a few seconds before you start answering it.

16 And then maybe pause at the end of each sentence.

17 A. Sure.

18 Q. You're speaking of -- on page 5 of -- you refer to nuances that

19 you've spoken about in the previous sentence. These nuances set the stage

20 for a dysfunctional relationship between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia on the

21 one hand and their respective parent countries bordering on Bosnia,

22 Serbia, and Croatia on the other. "Serbs and Croats in Bosnia were prone

23 to look to Belgrade and Zagreb respectively for leadership, and to favour

24 secession from Bosnia in times of crisis."

25 Of the three peoples there in Bosnia, Serbs and Croats and

1 Muslims, I think what you're saying is the Serbs could look to Serbia in a

2 time of crisis; the Croats could look to Croatia in a time of crisis, but

3 where were the Muslims to look?

4 A. That is correct. I'll pause for a moment.

5 Yes, that's correct. I also want to make a different point, which

6 is very central to the war in Bosnia. And that is that the relationship

7 between the capital, let's say Belgrade and the Serbs in Bosnia is always

8 tense, and it is tense because Milosevic, for example, has an overriding

9 priority which is to pursue his own interests, which relate to Serbia

10 itself. And over and over again, he has to remind these people, the Serbs

11 in Croatia or Bosnia, that the interests of Belgrade and the interests of

12 Serbia come first.

13 Now, I'll just give you one previous but very poignant example and

14 not go further for the moment: In Croatia, an agreement was reached that

15 the United Nations forces, UNPROFOR, would come to occupy those Serbian

16 minority areas, as we all know. The Serbian leadership, and you have

17 someone here who is testifying now, Babic, against this was aghast at this

18 particular moment. And Milosevic wrote him and said, "You have got to

19 understand, Milan," he said, "The interests of the matsa [phoen]," that is

20 Serbia itself, "come first." And this is what governs all of his actions

21 throughout the entire war. He is ready to dispose of these people in

22 Croatia if they don't serve his interests. It comes down to that in

23 Bosnia as well at the end of the war. And this is the tension that I

24 think is very important to understanding the way the war goes in Bosnia.

25 Q. One of the questions that has been contended here in this Tribunal

1 since its beginning was the question of whether or not an effort was being

2 made to create what is referred to as a Greater Serbia. Can you comment

3 on that?

4 A. Sure, of course. I think first there is some -- there is a need

5 to be cautious about the use of that term. The Serb intellectuals

6 associated with the memorandum of the Serbian Academy, for example, on --

7 where everyone sort of goes to start explaining about the notion of a

8 Greater Serbia, never themselves laid out a plan for a Greater Serbia, and

9 more importantly still, were quite ready to accept the notion of a

10 federation within which the Serbs would be a member. As a way of making

11 sure that all Serbs remained in one state; in other words, they were not

12 wedded to the notion of a Greater Serbia territorially. Their goal was

13 something else. It was to make sure that all Serbs would be in one state.

14 So the more radical position was, and I consider that to be the position

15 of espousing a Greater Serbia, was the idea of territorial aggrandizement

16 for Serbia pure and simple, and the extreme right under Seselj and others

17 proposed such projects for the expansion of Serbian territory all the way

18 up to Zagreb and things of this nature. There's a very great difference

19 between these two positions.

20 Secondly, and then I will bring this to a close, those Serbs in,

21 for example, in Bosnia or in Croatia who desperately wanted to join

22 Serbia, they were not opposed to the notion of a Greater Serbia; they

23 were -- in their way extremely wedded to the notion of a national state

24 with all of its symbols and things like this. But their primary concern

25 was to become part of Serbia, not to create a Greater Serbia. Let me just

1 briefly comment on this. Those persons, for example, the Bosnian Serbs in

2 the area you're interested in, in the Krajina, were not particularly eager

3 or concerned about the fate of Kosovo, as you might expect, if they were

4 wedded completely to the notion of a Greater Serbia, and vice versa. They

5 were, of course, extreme in their nationalism, but they were not really, I

6 would say, die-hard proponents of the notion of a Greater Serbia.

7 Milosevic himself distinguished himself from those who espoused a Greater

8 Serbia at various stages of his career and during the war in Bosnia. I

9 won't go into that in great detail now. I've talked enough.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: This might be an appropriate time, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. Thank you, Professor

12 Shoup. We'll have a 25-minute break starting from now.

13 --- Recess taken at 3.42 p.m.

14 --- On resuming at 4.16 p.m.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Q. Professor, we have to be kind to the translators.

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And we also need to move along a little more quickly or we'll

21 never finish.

22 A. Absolutely.

23 Q. I want to refer, I'm still in your report, I'm on page 5. I'm

24 about two-thirds of the way down. You've written this sentence: "If the

25 breakup of Yugoslavia was attended by violence, then the outbreak of a

1 civil war in Bosnia was virtually unavoidable.". Why do you come to that

2 conclusion?

3 A. Yes. I sometimes feel that people who viewed the war in Bosnia

4 were very detached and unrealistic about what they saw. If the rest of

5 Yugoslavia had become violent, let's say, in this case, the war between

6 Serbia and Croatia, if there was a euphoristic nationalism spreading

7 through Yugoslavia, which was the case in the late 1980s, in Slovenia, in

8 Croatia, and of course in Serbia, then it is absolutely impossible to

9 think that this would not spread to Bosnia. This is as simply as I can

10 put it.

11 Now, there are other factors involved. For example, and I'll be

12 quick, when the war broke out between Serbia and Croatia, paramilitaries

13 were attracted to the area. When the United Nations then came in as a

14 peacekeeping force, those paramilitaries and others had no place to go and

15 went to Bosnia. They were a disruptive force. They were looking for a

16 new war. All of that might have been avoided if there had been a peaceful

17 resolution of the conflict between Serbia and Croatia.

18 Q. On page 6, you talk about -- I think where you are in that second

19 paragraph on page 6 is,"as war the breaking out", we're in maybe April of

20 1992. You have this to say -- and we had talked earlier about everyone

21 was getting along extremely well in former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, and then

22 all of a sudden everything came apart. You wrote this: "While the

23 Bosnian Muslims called for tolerance, they also labelled Serbs on the

24 opposite side of the barricades as Chetniks. Serbs were easily convinced

25 that Muslims were infiltrated by Mujahedin and were bent on creating a

1 Muslim state. The Croats of Western Herzegovina were tagged as Ustasha.

2 These perceptions, it should be added, were not simply manufactured by the

3 nationalist leaderships, although propaganda was rife on all sides, but

4 had a deep resonance thanks to Bosnia's past among the Bosnian people at

5 large."

6 Now, are you saying there that some of this kind of rhetoric that

7 developed and the behaviour that followed it was almost indigenous? It

8 didn't take much to bring it to the surface? Is that what you're saying?

9 A. It did not take much to bring it to the surface if you realise

10 that in intimate conversations among Serbs, among Croats, the notion that

11 the Ustasha were still out there someplace or that they had done these

12 things to Serbs during the war and down the line, the same kinds of

13 references were still very much alive. In daily life, under Tito, it

14 didn't matter. But when Titoism collapsed, what communism collapsed, I

15 guess I would put it this way: The past captured the present. Now you

16 had to think in those terms, and these were terms that you had actually

17 used, discussed, talked about in the intimacy of your kitchen as I've

18 heard these conversations over and over again, even in times of peace.

19 Q. We had talked about the formation of the ethnic-based parties, the

20 SDA, the SDS, the HDZ. Of course, there were -- political campaigns went

21 on, leading up to the elections. On page 14 of your report, you

22 describe -- and you're quoting from the Netherlands Institute materials

23 at this point, but you describe a rally that was held on the 10th of

24 September 1990 in Velika, Kladusa, and it's described by the Netherlands

25 report in the following language: "On 10 September 1990, the largest SDA

1 rally in the election campaign in Velika Kladusa pushed Zulfikarpasic

2 over the edge." Now let me pause. We heard a little bit about him in the

3 tape yesterday. Tell the Chamber who was Zulfikarpasic and what role did

4 he play as these things developed?

5 A. Yes. Zulfikarpasic was a wealthy businessman, a Bosnian Muslim

6 who lived in Zurich who had witnessed atrocities committed in World War II

7 when he was a young man. He came back to Bosnia to try to be to a

8 moderating influence. He joined the SDA party, that is, the Muslim party,

9 then left that party because he found it too extreme.

10 What I did not know until I read this account of the Velika

11 Kladusa rally was that this particular moment played a role in

12 Zulfikarpasic decision. He felt that the SDA was too extreme. And then

13 went forward to try to form a more moderate Muslim party which

14 participated in the elections but didn't get the vote.

15 Q. That would have been the MBO?

16 A. MBO, excuse me.

17 Q. Continuing, then. On what Duijzings says here: "In the presence

18 of at least 200.000 people, the party made it clear that the Muslims were

19 not prepared to live in a rump Yugoslavia, and that if needs be, they

20 would take up arms to defend Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were hundreds of

21 green flags, people in Arabic dress and portraits of Saddam Hussein,

22 people were chanting long live Saddam Hussein, and we're going to kill

23 Vuk," and it in brackets it says Draskovic. Who was Vuk Draskovic?

24 A. Vuk Draskovic was a political leader in Serbia, also a novelist,

25 and he had written novels about World War II, Muslims versus Serbs. So

1 these people are reacting to what they consider him to be a nationalist, a

2 Serb nationalist.

3 Q. Continuing: "After this, Zulfikarpasic no longer trusted

4 Izetbegovic. And on 18 September, along with a few allies, just about a

5 week later in other words, he and Muhamed Filipovic left the SDA." Now,

6 the Muhamed Filipovic that is mentioned here, the Trial Chamber is

7 familiar with two Muhamed Filipovics. There's one who was from Kljuc, and

8 there's one who was a professor in Sarajevo. Do you know --

9 A. This is the professor from Sarajevo.

10 Q. This rally with 200.000 people there that this passage describes,

11 would this have happened in a vacuum so that no one outside Velika Kladusa

12 would have known about this?

13 A. Of course not. I wasn't present in Yugoslavia at that particular

14 moment, but I can tell you this would have been -- the news of this would

15 have spread far and wide. It would have had a -- confirmed the views of

16 suspicious Serbs that they and the Muslims were going on divergent paths.

17 Q. The quote says this rally caused Zulfikarpasic to no longer trust

18 Izetbegovic.

19 A. Mm-hmm.

20 Q. Do you know what it was that Izetbegovic did, if anything, at that

21 rally that would have caused Zulfikarpasic not to trust him any longer?

22 A. Yes, I do. I don't think -- I'll be quiet, I'll be just slower.

23 Yes, I do. I don't think in the quote in the report, but if you continue

24 to read Professor Duijzings' account, you will see that Zulfikarpasic

25 says, "We will fight for a Bosnia in which Muslims --" I won't give you

1 the exact phrase; I don't have it in front of me, perhaps you do. But we

2 will fight to -- if we have to, we will fight to make sure that Bosnia is

3 an independent state. And I forget what he says about the Muslim role.

4 But I think this belligerent tone was for Zulfikarpasic a sign that

5 Izetbegovic, posing as a moderate, in fact was ready to go to the extreme

6 extent necessary in this case to achieve his goals. I'm sorry, I can't

7 give you the exact quote.

8 Q. That's all right. I'm going to back up a second to --

9 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

10 MR. ACKERMAN:

11 Q. I think I'm going to back up just a second to -- I think it's page

12 17 of your report. There was a provision in the 1974 constitution for the

13 creation, I think, according to what you've written here, for a council of

14 national equality. Actually, it was an amendment well after 1974. But it

15 was an amendment to create a -- this national equality council. Do you

16 have any idea why that council of national equality never got off the

17 ground, why it was never actually formed?

18 A. That body was provided for in an amendment to the constitution

19 that was adopted in 1990. It should have been put into effect even before

20 the elections of late 1990. I have asked my scholar colleagues in

21 Sarajevo to provide me with more information about this constitutional

22 issue unsuccessfully so far. In brief, I can't give you a real answer.

23 My suspicion is that neither the Serbs, nor the Muslim parties were really

24 interested in forming this body and engaging in what would have been a

25 consociational accommodational dialogue to save Bosnia. And let me make

1 one point. What they were doing was dividing the assets of Bosnia between

2 them. That was what they liked to do. They were not interested in

3 sitting down and making constitutional arrangements that would make Bosnia

4 function.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, one moment, Mr. Ackerman.

6 MS. KORNER: I don't think we can avoid the point that I am

7 objecting to by saying "my suspicion is" rather than "my speculation is."

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Korner, you are perfectly right.

9 What puzzles me, Professor Shoup, is something, just having followed what

10 you just stated, at the same time reading through your report, also your

11 book, and Professor Donia's report, and of course my own personal

12 knowledge of the events, how do you reconcile this with the Serbs then and

13 the Croats trying to partition Bosnia which would have suited both the

14 Serbs and the Croats, but certainly not the Muslims with whom you're

15 saying that the Serbs were very much interested in splitting, sharing,

16 grabbing the assets?

17 THE WITNESS: You will have noticed that in our book that there

18 was a moment after the elections when the three nationalist parties were

19 getting along very well with one another. The immediate reason for that

20 was that they were all anti-communists, and so they were enjoying the

21 victory of having thrown the communists out of power, and so they would

22 get together and celebrate their victory.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: This was when?

24 THE WITNESS: This would have been January of 1992. At the same

25 time, the process began of dividing up the assets of the state. And all

1 three parties were in accord that that is what should happen. Let me give

2 you an example -- initially.

3 Let me give you an example. Prior to the outbreak of war, now

4 we're talking about the 2nd of March 1992, this is a month before the war

5 breaks out, there are barricades thrown up in Sarajevo, the Serb side

6 makes certain demands, and the demands are focussed on dividing up the

7 police, dividing up television and so forth.

8 In fact, the SDA was not necessarily opposed to this kind of a

9 division of what up until that time had been a Yugoslav television. For

10 example, Yutel, the Yugoslav television was still functioning in Sarajevo

11 up until May of 1992. All three nationalist parties were objecting to

12 Yutel's coverage of Bosnia because it took a very broad view, it showed

13 things from different perspectives and so forth. My point is, all three

14 of them had a common interest in trying to divide television,

15 communications, assets of municipalities along ethnic lines. The problem

16 was that, of course, they began to argue about who would get what and so

17 forth and so on, and ultimately the Serbs planned to utilise what they had

18 gained to form their own region within Bosnia, and if things worked out,

19 to secede. There is not any contradiction in these various actions

20 that were being taken in the spring of 1992.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Mr. Ackerman, please go ahead.

22 MR. ACKERMAN:

23 Q. I'd like to back up about three months to the Bosnian parliament

24 in October. There was a big debate going on about a memorandum on

25 declaration of the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That was the --

1 just to draw your attention to where we are, that was the debate where

2 Karadzic made his famous, what has been termed a threat. At page 77 of

3 your book, you speak of this in some detail, and I'm not going to go very

4 much into this except to ask you this question: Karadzic makes his --

5 after there's a refusal to refer things to this council of national

6 equality on the grounds that it was not yet in existence, Karadzic then

7 says what he said, and it may be useful just to look at it very quickly.

8 Page 77, he says: "I'm asking you once again, I'm not threatening, but

9 asking you to take seriously the interpretation of the political will of

10 the Serbian people who are represented here by the...", and the quote says

11 SDP, "...and the Serbian renewal movement and a couple of Serbs from other

12 parties. I ask you to take seriously the fact that what you are doing is

13 not good. Is this the road under which you want to direct

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina? The same highway to hell and suffering that Slovenia

15 and Croatia are travelling? Do not think that you will not lead

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina to hell. And do not think that you will not perhaps

17 lead the Muslim people into annihilation because the Muslim people cannot

18 defend themselves if there is war. How will you prevent everyone from

19 being killed in Bosnia-Herzegovina?"

20 Izetbegovic then responds to that, referring to what Karadzic has

21 said: "His manner and his messages perhaps explain why others also

22 refused to stay in such a Yugoslavia. Nobody else wants the kind of

23 Yugoslavia that Mr. Karadzic wants any more, no one except, perhaps, the

24 Serbian people. Such a Yugoslavia and such a manner of Karadzic are

25 simply hated by the people of Yugoslavia. And I then say to the people of

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina that there will not be war. That is my prediction

2 based on the facts on some confirmed facts. Therefore, sleep peacefully,

3 there is no need to fear because it takes two to tango."

4 It appears almost as if Izetbegovic isn't taking what Karadzic

5 says seriously? Why does he respond in such a way that there will be no

6 war?

7 A. First, in the report, I repeat over and over again that all sides

8 were preparing for war, including the Muslim side in self-defense. This

9 comment by Izetbegovic is meant to reassure as much as anything the

10 international community, if they are listening, that nothing disastrous

11 will happen before Bosnia is recognised as an independent state. On other

12 occasions, in the book we mention how Izetbegovic in seeming contradiction

13 to everything that is going on makes exactly the same kind of statement.

14 Everything is peaceful, everything will be fine. The reason is very

15 simple: He doesn't want the threat of war or fear of war to in any way

16 pose an obstacle to the recognition of Bosnia which he, and I understand

17 him perfectly, feels is the only way they will be saved from a war in

18 which they will be the possible losers.

19 Q. What follows, of course, is a walkout by the Serb deputies that

20 you describe. Later, there's another similar confrontation after the

21 referendum on whether or not there will be a resolution for independence,

22 again the Serbs walk out of parliament.

23 A. That's right.

24 Q. Two major occasions, then, when the Muslims and the Croats

25 basically decide to take positions against the will of the Serbian people,

1 the Serbian delegates at least. My question is this: Do you believe that

2 they knew, the Muslims and the Croats who were taking these positions in

3 the Bosnian parliament, do you think they knew that war would result from

4 that?

5 A. Absolutely. I think that this was their fear, that war would come

6 in any case, and that what they must do was to prepare themselves for this

7 war by trying to gain independence. So they were willing in October to

8 push the issue of the sovereignty of Bosnia as a first step. Then they

9 were going to pick up the ball that Badinter had thrown to them in January

10 of 1992 and prepare a referendum, also for independence, as a second step

11 to lead to recognition of Bosnia. They felt this was the only way that if

12 war came they would be able to defend themselves, if they had already

13 received recognition as an independent state. So these actions are

14 really, although they seem provocative in many ways, a very logical way

15 for them to go if they want to prepare themselves for independence. Mind

16 you, there should have been more intervention on the part of the

17 international community. That's another story.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, Mr. Ackerman.

19 This brings me back. I'm honestly now feeling a little bit -- to

20 make me feel even more confused, I'm receiving interpretation in

21 Serbo-Croat.

22 Mr. Shoup, please try to make me understand. All this is

23 happening starting October, November, December.

24 THE WITNESS: That's right.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: January, and we have the referendum, et cetera.

1 Earlier on, when you had stated that they were enjoying -- the three

2 parties were getting together and celebrating their victory, et cetera,

3 and they asked you to place it within the time frame, you told me January

4 1992. So what is exactly happening in January 1992? Are they all

5 partying together and celebrating, or are they preparing for war? Because

6 we have heard evidence of what was going on within the Serbian quarters in

7 late 1991, we know or have heard evidence of what was taking place in

8 Sarajevo within the Muslim Bosniak quarters roundabout the same period. I

9 mean, I find it very difficult to understand how you can maintain your

10 position that in January of 1992 everything was so rosy.

11 THE WITNESS: I didn't, hear, excuse me.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: In January of 1992, they were so pally, I mean, the

13 three parties?

14 THE WITNESS: That was the case. Let me just state that as a

15 fact. I must say that these people were not unknown to each other. They

16 were -- Mr. Karadzic had been a well-liked psychiatrist in Sarajevo before

17 the war. They knew how to sit down in Yugoslav style and drink a beer

18 together. Let's, however, put this in perspective. There was still hope,

19 I think, that perhaps some way would be found to save either a Yugoslavia

20 through international negotiations of some kind, or to save Bosnia even.

21 I don't think that any of these nationalist parties really were -- how to

22 put it -- ready to just simply for no reason to go to war. They felt

23 compelled to prepare for war. They had completely diametrically opposed

24 agendas, but at the same time they were Bosnians, and they did feel some

25 camaraderie and so forth. This was nothing unusual. They had not yet

1 learned, I think, to hate each other as they would shortly. This is the

2 best I can do to describe that moment that is described in the book. We

3 have quotes in the book which indicate how they sat down to enjoy each

4 other's company briefly in the spring of 1992. That's as far as I can go.

5 Judge, I'm sorry I can't do a better job.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Again, I place it in a more particular point --

7 frame in time. This is just post December 1991.

8 THE WITNESS: Yes.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: We know what happened vis-a-vis with regard to

10 Croatia and Slovenia in December of 1991.

11 THE WITNESS: You're saying that they know already about the war

12 in Croatia --

13 JUDGE AGIUS: No, it's the recognition of -- international

14 recognition of both Slovenia and Croatia.

15 THE WITNESS: That's correct.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: And I think it was obviously clear to everyone also

17 from the evidence that we have heard here that everyone knew that what was

18 going to happen afterwards with regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

19 THE WITNESS: There was at that particular moment, December 1991

20 and January 1992, a little sliver of hope. And this was because an

21 anticipated Serbian offensive against Croatia after she was recognised by

22 the Germans did not take place. Instead, Milosevic actually softened his

23 tone considerably in December of 1991, January of 1992. In December of

24 1991, he held what he called a convention for the new Yugoslavia. The new

25 Yugoslavia was to be made up of Serbia and Montenegro. He didn't mention

1 the others as members. Two or three months earlier, the official Belgrade

2 position was "we are going to create a Serbia with all of the Serbs in

3 it." Now he said in December, no. He said those Serbs outside of Serbia

4 and Montenegro will have to wait. Now, his calculation might have been

5 that with waiting he would get what he needed anyway. But there was an

6 optimistic mood briefly at that point. And if I might just conclude on

7 this note, it's very interesting. Our Ambassador, Warren Zimmerman, who

8 had been against the recognition of Croatia because he thought it would

9 lead to a rapid spread of the war, now because he saw that Milosevic had

10 softened his tone decided that yes, recognition really works. Let's go

11 ahead and recognise Bosnia, and Milosevic will react in the same way that

12 he reacted to the recognition of Croatia. That's the situation that -- in

13 which these people sit down briefly and enjoy a beer together.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: In other cases, we would have spoken of a comedy of

15 errors. Here, it's a tragedy of errors. Let's proceed.

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. I think, Professor, we might assist the Judge in understanding

18 this if we would talk about that session on January 25th. That session

19 lasted, according to your book, page 106, until 3.30 in the morning. And

20 that -- this is after the Karadzic speech. It's after the Izetbegovic

21 speech back in October. It's after a lot of things that have happened

22 that don't look good for the future.

23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I really am sorry but Mr. Ackerman --

24 each of the questions now is preceded by Mr. Ackerman's summary what he

25 perceives to be the situation to be. This is still a witness. It should

1 just be a question, not Mr. Ackerman's summary.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: You are right, Ms. Korner. Yes, Mr. Ackerman --

3 MS. KORNER: This is the expert witness. Mr. Ackerman should ask

4 him a direct question, and then Professor Shoup can give the explanation.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, go straight to the question, Mr. Ackerman. I

6 mean, after all, Professor Shoup wrote the book, so he knows exactly what

7 the preceding events, or immediately preceding events were.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: I have been trying to save time, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I know.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: If Ms. Korner doesn't want me to save time --

11 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm sorry, I'm interrupting you. I shouldn't be

12 interrupting this much, but I'm trying to understand as well.

13 MR. ACKERMAN:

14 Q. Tell the Court in this marathon session that went on on the 25th

15 of January, were these people at each other's throats or were they trying

16 to come to some kind of an agreed disposition of this issue of

17 independence?

18 A. We have a long quotation, Professor Burg and I, about this session

19 taken from the newspaper Oslobodjenje, which is, of course a -- it's not a

20 Serb newspaper. At this point, it's a quite reliable, independent

21 newspaper. It's a remarkable passage. All of a sudden, these persons who

22 have been provoking each other in various ways seem to come to a point

23 where they realise that they are on the edge of the abyss. The issue is:

24 Should we try to reach some kind of new constitutional arrangements before

25 we declare independence for Bosnia? Because the existing constitutional

1 arrangements are for a unitary state, which of course is totally

2 unacceptable to the Serbs and to the Croatians in Western Herzegovina. Or

3 should we first offer the people of Bosnia a referendum with no reference

4 to constitutional, you know, accommodations for the Serbs and the Croats

5 and then subsequently try to hammer out this question of revising this

6 unitary constitution?

7 I think everyone in that meeting felt that it was necessary to at

8 least address the problem of constitutional reform. You can see even

9 Cengic who was the deputy head of the SDA saying we should address this

10 question of constitutional reform. First, let's say something about it

11 before we issue this referendum. And at this point, late at night, it

12 appears that maybe some progress is being made. The deputies all welcome

13 this suggestion. Izetbegovic stands up and says no. He says we will

14 first submit a referendum with no reference to constitutional reforms.

15 That can be discussed after the declaration of independence has been

16 adopted by the people of Bosnia.

17 It's a remarkable movement. It requires flushing out in the sense

18 that we don't have other accounts than this one. But it's there to show

19 how, I think, the deputies in the assembly were very aware of what was

20 about to happen. They were desperately trying maybe even to accommodate

21 each other, and this fleeting moment then passed. Maybe this

22 interpretation is not correct, but I think it's one that deserved to be

23 put in the book.

24 Q. If one look at page 106 at that long quote that you do have from

25 Oslobodjenje, it indicates does it not that at one point in the evening

1 Karadzic and Cengic actually shared the podium, announced they were close

2 to agreement. There was applause from the deputies. And then later on,

3 Izetbegovic made his announcement that there would not be any deal.

4 A. We cannot be sure of the sincerity of the actors at this moment.

5 I don't pretend that I know absolutely because at this point the Serbs had

6 already staked out an extreme position about the autonomy of the various

7 autonomous "oglas" that they had formed. It would have been extremely

8 difficult to arrive at some kind of constitutional compromise. Yet the

9 fact remains that at that moment, the only moment that I could ever detect

10 in this long constitutional debate, all three sides seem desperately to be

11 searching for some kind of accommodation before the referendum is voted

12 on.

13 Q. I'm going to move ahead now to -- I'm going to page 26 of your

14 report. You were talking there about a plan that Milosevic and Tudjman

15 had met and talked about to basically partition Bosnia between Croatia and

16 Serbia. And you say this: If Bosnia was not regarded as having the right

17 to statehood and the history of Bosnia suggested how unprepared she was to

18 undertake this task, then there could be no objection in principle to such

19 a solution." The only question I have about that is what prompts the

20 conclusion that Bosnia was unprepared to undertake the task of statehood?

21 A. Bosnia was a negative state. It existed as a province of

22 Yugoslavia, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire in a sort of state of

23 arrested development. The ethnic system was one of a very -- almost

24 ancient type. And this was because -- not because the Bosnian state was

25 strong or national consciousness was developed, because no one could agree

1 on how to divide Bosnia up. In other words, she was really a historical

2 residue. Earlier, we commented on the fact that other states surrounding

3 Bosnia had made no -- had no compunctions to an ex-Bosnia, to partition

4 her, whatever the case might be. There was no Bosnian national

5 consciousness; there was -- had never been a Bosnian state since the

6 middle ages; the notion of independence was one in some ways that was

7 shocking; the Muslims themselves had never done more in the past than

8 demand autonomy within Yugoslavia or the independent state of Croatia

9 during World War II.

10 This fact, this historical fact, comes into collusion -- or

11 collision, I should say, with the development of the post communist

12 perception that republics in communist states, however artificial, should

13 remain with their borders intact. Remember, this is something that comes

14 up in the case of the Soviet Union. And so looking at Bosnia, it was

15 natural and not incorrect to say regardless of Bosnia's past, her

16 boundaries must stay where they are or we will be engaged in ethnic

17 conflict and so forth and so on. However, if is it seemed that retaining

18 these boundaries would lead to ethnic conflict, as it did, a civil war, if

19 you agreed that Bosnia had really no great claims for statehood, you might

20 think of other solutions. And there were other solutions that are

21 discussed here in the report and in the book; namely, some kind of a

22 return to the agreement between Croatia and Serbia from 1939. I won't go

23 further than that. But really Bosnia had no, you know, no reason to think

24 that it could just claim independence unless the Muslims were to become

25 the titular nationality, in which case many very difficult issues arose.

1 Q. I want to go to another subject. I'm now up to page 44 of your

2 report. You have a section under the title "ancient hatreds," and you say

3 this: "The notion that the peoples of Bosnia were the prisoners of their

4 violent past enrages the critics of the ancient hatreds theory. However,

5 the fact of the matter was that the families remembered who had engaged in

6 atrocities during World War II and vengeance became the order of the day

7 as regime collapse gathered speed even before the war.

8 THE INTERPRETER: Could you please slow down for the benefit of

9 the interpreters. Thank you.

10 THE INTERPRETER: Please read slowly. Thank you.

11 THE WITNESS: All right. I do understand that sentence. Here, I

12 talk about vengeance becoming the order of the day. I would, if I had my

13 druthers, Mr. Ackerman, I would rewrite that sentence.

14 MR. ACKERMAN:

15 Q. And you would rewrite it how?

16 A. I would say as Mr. Duijzings said in his very excellent report,

17 vengeance became the order of the day after the atrocities commenced

18 during this current war. Now, there was a tradition of vengeance. This

19 was a cruel society in some respects, and this is why I've included this

20 little account of what happened in Medjugorje as an example of that. But

21 I certainly should not have tried to imply that everybody went out to get

22 even for what they remembered had happened during World War II. I don't

23 want to make that -- I don't want to imply that at all.

24 Q. I think it is important -- well, I probably shouldn't say this.

25 I'll just ask the question. What role does vengeance play in the Balkan

1 character?

2 A. It does play a role. In the rural areas of Bosnia and elsewhere,

3 it does play a role. Let me explain. If you live in a small village up

4 in the mountains of Bosnia, or this could be Serbia, could be Macedonia,

5 your whole life is encompassed by the life of the village. And you have a

6 very minute knowledge of not only everybody in the village, but what

7 everybody had done or said or done to another person five years ago, ten

8 years ago, maybe generations ago. That is your life. And this is why

9 oral history is so well developed. An anthropologist who goes to a

10 village in Bosnia or Serbia, as you may know, goes to the individuals, and

11 he will be able to transcribe in great detail a family history and who has

12 done what to whom and so on and so on. And these things then are

13 remembered. Then when violence breaks out for -- ethnic clashes take

14 place and terrible atrocities occur, getting even will happen, you know,

15 in the course of a war. As I said, I think it's extreme -- this is not

16 correct to put it the way I did here, but this is -- these are mountain

17 men, you know. There's nothing remarkable about that. Keep in mind, of

18 course, that the people who were committing the atrocities often even if

19 they were from the neighbourhood were not necessarily themselves the best

20 of the best. They were -- sometimes they were in there for plunder and so

21 forth. Their initial reasons for doing this were not vengeance, but

22 that's -- that cycle began with these kinds of actions. And it led to

23 Srebrenica in 1995, of course.

24 Q. Let's go now to page 47 of your report under the heading

25 "responsibility for the war." The question I want to ask you, and you

1 lead into it in the first paragraph there, just the last phrase in that

2 paragraph,"what Bosnia was experiencing was indeed a civil war, and that

3 it was precisely this that differentiated the conflict from earlier cases

4 of ethnic violence on Bosnian soil."

5 I do want you to speak for a moment about what you mean by

6 differentiated it from earlier cases of ethnic violence, but I'm also

7 interested in having you explain your conclusion that this was a civil war

8 because this is also an issue of dispute as to whether it was Serbian

9 aggression or in fact a civil war.

10 A. I understand. I'll try to be brief. These issues, I think, are

11 well known to the Court. But -- wait a minute -- just back, excuse me,

12 to the first question that you posed.

13 Q. You had said that it was precisely the civil war aspect that

14 differentiated it from other earlier cases of violence on Bosnian soil.

15 A. In earlier instances the breakdown of law and order had been --

16 taken place within the context of a world war. Foreign powers were on

17 Bosnian soil. And so the outcome of ethnic conflicts in Bosnia depended

18 on the outcome of the larger war that was being waged on its soil. A war

19 such as World War II. Those wars took their own course, and Bosnia, then,

20 would be under the control of whoever won that war. This was the first

21 time that a truly civil war had arisen in which the three ethnic groups

22 were, in effect, allowed to fight one another until one won or another

23 lost. And this war could have lasted much longer than it did. This was a

24 unique situation. I think the -- some of the observations in the

25 Netherlands Institute for War Documentation point to the fact that most of

1 the wars have not been as destructive or lasted as long because they were

2 not, as my -- as I suggest, purely a civil war between the three ethnic

3 communities.

4 Now, let's go on the second part about a civil war. It seems to

5 me simply that the tensions that were generated in Bosnia, they were--

6 during the period of the collapse of communism were very real. They

7 created real antagonisms between the three ethnic communities. The Serbs

8 and the Bosnians to simplify had totally different concepts of what the

9 future of Bosnia should be. They mobilised their supporters during this

10 election campaign prior to December 1990 -- 1991, excuse me. All of this

11 is part of the record, and all of this takes place within Bosnia. It is

12 not as though these people, for example, the SDS, the Serbian party, is

13 being paid and funded and urged and created by Belgrade. And I state here

14 if it can be shown, and maybe I'm wrong, but it could be shown that

15 Karadzic's party was simply a creation of Belgrade and all of these events

16 that led to this confrontation before the war even broke out were simply

17 the result of the manoeuvres of outside powers, then I would perhaps be

18 willing to acknowledge that this was aggression. But otherwise, since

19 this was -- these tensions were -- originated from within Bosnia itself, I

20 can't accept that. I won't go further into the war itself. There were so

21 many instances in which Belgrade and Pale were, you know, in conflict with

22 another. You could see it's not just the case of a puppet relationship.

23 Q. Well, that raises an interesting question. And I don't know if

24 you know the answer to it or not. The HDZ, the Croat party in Bosnia, was

25 the counterpart of the same party in Croatia, was it not?

1 A. That's correct, yeah.

2 Q. Why, if you know, why was not there a counterpart of Milosevic's

3 party in Bosnia instead of a totally separate SDS?

4 A. I don't know. This was one of the objections raised by a reviewer

5 of the book who said that we don't explain why -- why Milosevic simply

6 didn't form his own party. To me, the answer is because these processes

7 were going forward in Bosnia on their own and had deep roots in Bosnia

8 itself, whereas the Croatian case was one where Belgrade had a greater

9 role in actually influencing the direction which the Serb movement was

10 going. And by the way, there was a moderate, Vareskovic, in Croatia who

11 was in effect forced out of power by the machinations in Belgrade. This

12 didn't happen in Bosnia. But I can't explain why Milosevic didn't do

13 this.

14 Q. All of quote in your report on page --

15 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. I don't know why I turn on my microphone. I speak too fast

18 anyhow. It might be better for the interpreters if I left it off.

19 You have quote from Professor Robert Hayden on page 49. I think

20 before we refer to it, you should tell the Chamber who he was?

21 A. Professor Robert Hayden is an expert, again, on Yugoslavia. He is

22 a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a trained

23 anthropologist and legal specialist, and he has testified actually in

24 front of the Tribunal on earlier occasions. I believe, I am not certain

25 of this, maybe as a Defence expert witness in the Tadic case. Some of you

1 may know for sure.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Korner.

3 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, while we're on the topic, this, if you

4 look at the footnote, this refers to an unpublished manuscript by this

5 gentleman.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

7 MS. KORNER: I wonder if the professor has this unpublished

8 manuscript with him which he can supply to us so we can have a look at it

9 because he's apparently relying on this quote, and because it's

10 unpublished we don't have it.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

12 THE WITNESS: I understand your concern. And I was told just

13 before I left that the Court would need this document. Unfortunately, I

14 didn't have time to bring it with me. I have then sent an email to

15 Professor Hayden to email it to the Court. I don't think we've gotten a

16 copy from him yet, have we? I can telephone him perhaps and he can send

17 it to you. I have a copy at home, but I just couldn't find it in time to

18 bring it here.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: The request was made to email it to me and it

21 hadn't come yet. I don't know whether that's because he's out of town and

22 not getting his emails or what.

23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour will recall, I raised this a considerable

24 time ago, and said that if an expert was going to rely on unpublished

25 material it should be supplied.

1 THE WITNESS: I'll make every effort to bring it. I thought it

2 would come -- I thought that Professor Hayden would supply us with it, but

3 I'll have to phone him and find out why it hasn't come.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: And, Your Honour, I made the request immediately

5 after Ms. Korner raised it, and it was --

6 JUDGE AGIUS: The witness has confirmed that. But we still don't

7 have it in any case.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: The answer is we don't have it.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

10 MR. ACKERMAN:

11 Q. Your quote from Professor Hayden, however, says this: "Political

12 deadlock in this case meant that the Bosnian State failed. The organised

13 political authority lost the allegiance of at least half of the population

14 and also lost control over the territories that the people who rejected it

15 controlled. Of course, it is often true in any civil war that the

16 government loses the allegiance of some citizens and control over some

17 territories, but the difference in Bosnia was the internationally

18 recognised government never had either the allegiance of half its putative

19 citizens or control over even half of its supposed territory to begin

20 with. Indeed, Bosnian independence was recognised by the international

21 community not because the people of Bosnia wanted it, but rather precisely

22 because so many of them did not. Thus, Bosnia manifested what might be

23 termed negative sovereignty, external insistence that it be one country

24 when half of its own population was determined to divide it."

25 What's your reaction to that quote?

1 A. I appreciate that this may need explanation. And if I did it

2 again, I would provide it right in the report. This seems to contradict

3 the results of the referendum that took place in -- at the end of February

4 because in the referendum which asked the peoples of Bosnia did they wish

5 independence, some 64 per cent of the population, as you know, said yes,

6 we want independence.

7 What Professor Hayden is referring to is the problem of the

8 Croatian vote. And this is explained in my report, I believe, in more

9 detail in the book. The Croatian vote is deceptive. They voted for

10 independence of Bosnia, but a certain segment of that vote was not

11 actually for the independence of Bosnia but for dividing Bosnia up. Why

12 would they vote for the independence of Bosnia? Because at that

13 particular moment, it was of overriding importance to Zagreb that the

14 integrity of Bosnia be defended because the integrity of Croatia was

15 threatened. And so he made it very clear to the Bosnian Croatians they

16 should vote for independence. You will notice if you've read our book

17 that it wasn't long afterwards that the leader of the HDZ party of the

18 Croatian party sat down, Mate Boban, with Karadzic at Grac and agreed to

19 partition Bosnia. So what Professor Hayden is relating to is the fact

20 that a large number of Croatians, plus the Serbs, were really, in fact,

21 determined to partition Bosnia, even though the results of the referendum

22 didn't reflect that fact.

23 This is not a disputable fact. The results of the referendum are

24 very deceiving. They don't really reflect what the Croatians of Bosnia

25 wanted. The question is, how many Croatians? And here, Professor Hayden

1 may be pushing things a little bit because there were Croatians living in

2 Sarajevo or living in Central Bosnia who genuinely and sincerely wished

3 Bosnia to remain as an independent state. They voted in the referendum

4 without any other motives in mind. And I say in the footnote if you

5 wanted to calculate carefully the secessionist Croatians and then take the

6 Serbian vote together, you would probably get 40 to 45 per cent of the

7 vote. Still, this is practically half of the people of Bosnia who, in

8 fact, did not want Bosnia to declare its independence who were for some

9 form of partitioning.

10 Q. All right. I want to move forward now and change subjects again.

11 During the war, and I'm mostly focussing on 1992, but looking at the war

12 as a whole, there are a number of exhibits and materials that discuss this

13 issue. And I don't want to simply sit here and read all those documents

14 to the Court because the Court can read them. But I would like you to

15 just discuss generally the relationship between the SDS and the VRS. What

16 was that relationship, did it change as the war went on? That sort of

17 thing.

18 A. All right. I'll try to be brief. That problem of the

19 relationship between the political side of the Serbian independence

20 movement and the VRS, which is the Vojska Republike Srpska, or the Serbian

21 Army, is not something that we dealt with, Professor Burg and I, in great

22 detail in the book. We were not really experts on this particular point.

23 However, in the book you will see something very striking, and

24 that is that by the end of the war, General Mladic, with the support of

25 his officers, I presume, and Karadzic had completely split. Karadzic had

1 fired Mladic actually as leader of the VRS, and Mladic had continued to be

2 close to Belgrade and was operating on his own at that particular point.

3 So the political and the military relationship on the Serb side was

4 extremely strained.

5 You will get a great deal of insight into that relationship in the

6 documents provided by the Defence and in the CIA reports ""Balkan

7 Battlegrounds"" where you will see that the military was very resentful of

8 the meddling of the politicians in purely military affairs. And the

9 civilian side, the SDS, was also very corrupt, and this was something that

10 the military, too, found very difficult to accept. I won't go any

11 further, just except to point out those strains. They were constant

12 apparently. We learn more and more about them all the time. I would

13 simply conclude by saying that those strains climaxed with the Srebrenica

14 massacre of 1995. Because it does appear that the military, Mladic, had

15 military motives for carrying out that massacre. And whether Karadzic

16 himself would have approved this or not, I'm not privy to the material

17 that has been unfolding here in the Court and I won't even try to assume

18 one thing or another. But I think it's important to see that that

19 continuing tension carries over into the situation that occurred in July

20 of 1995. It's very, very tantalising to know more, but I don't want to go

21 further.

22 Q. After the VRS was formed and General Mladic took control of the

23 VRS, do you know what his attitude was toward paramilitary forces?

24 A. Yes, he was very scornful of them. We have a good deal of

25 evidence again from these new publications that I am constantly referring

1 to, that the generals within the VRS tried to bring these paramilitaries

2 under their control.

3 Q. If we look at Exhibit DB371, at page 266, the CIA report has this

4 to say: "Bosnian Serb President Karadzic --"

5 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, can I just -- are we ""Balkan

6 Battlegrounds"" now or what? One or two?

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes. ""Balkan Battlegrounds" Two", page 266,

8 Ms. Korner. But it's also Exhibit DB371.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: 371, you said.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I might just say for the record that

11 "Balkan Battlegrounds, Volume II" is not yet generally available. No one

12 seems to be able to get it except for Professor Shoup who must have some

13 incredible connections with the CIA because he has got it and none of the

14 rest of us can get it.

15 Q. In any event: "Bosnian Serb President Karadzic..." -- I'm quoting

16 "...formalised the main staff's efforts to eliminate rogue elements with

17 the proclamation of a decree on 13 June 1992 prohibiting the formation and

18 operation of armed groups and individuals not under the unified command of

19 the armed forces or the police force."

20 This is the -- you had talked about Karadzic trying to fire Mladic

21 later on in 1995.

22 A. Mm-hm, mm-hm. Earlier, actually.

23 Q. It appears that in June of 1992, he's trying to help him by

24 eliminating the paramilitaries --

25 A. Yes. I don't think there's any difficulty with that.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman, may I ask who is the author of these

2 very straight lines, underlines, page 266 in particular and --

3 THE WITNESS: I am the author of that. And not to interrupt.

4 This was my personal acquisition, and I simply went to work on it.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: We tried to get another copy of "Balkan

7 Battlegrounds", Your Honour. It was not possible.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: I just want to make sure it is actually --

9 THE WITNESS: That's right.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: All of the underlining and the arrows and

11 everything in are Professor Shoup's that took place in Virginia before he

12 ever made it here.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: I hope this is not going to expose the witness to

14 any kind of trouble for making use, public use of this document. It's not

15 classified or anything?

16 MR. ACKERMAN: No, it's not a secret document. It's just not

17 available in the government printing office yet, and as a result, no one

18 else seems to be able to get it.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Because if that is the case, we will --

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Maybe by today, it is on the website. But it

21 wasn't there last week.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Or earlier in this week.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm just trying to protect the witness.

25 MR. ACKERMAN:

1 Q. I don't think there's any problem with that at all, is there,

2 Professor Shoup?

3 A. No, not at all.

4 Q. I want -- I'm skipping some material here because, as I said, it

5 makes no sense to sit here and read these things to the Judges when they

6 can read them themselves, but I am interested in this issue about

7 paramilitaries. If we look over at page 286 into the footnotes, there's a

8 description there of an interview with Lieutenant General Milan Gvero, who

9 apparently was close to the top of that VRS chain of command. It says

10 Mladic, Gvero, and many other ex-JNA officers had an abhorrence for a

11 disunited command, as Gvero implies, and constantly enforced the VRS

12 prerogatives as the sole RS armed force.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Page 286, Your Honours.

14 Q. "Assuming operational control over all MUP units in combat. They

15 hardly despised the volunteers and paramilitaries, and particularly

16 deplored their penchant for looting rather than fighting." In a 1993

17 interview, then Major General Slavko Lisica described his dislike for

18 volunteers stating: "These were not fighters, but rather adventurers and

19 the usual dregs that every war brings to the surface. They are

20 disorganised, irresponsible, and have never fit in with my concept of

21 combat. You have guys who will kill a 90-year-old man just for a lamb.

22 They ask me to send them out for so-called cleansing. Okay, I say. There

23 are some minefields you can clear out to your heart's content. Volunteers

24 have been a burden in my zone of responsibility so that on one occasion I

25 even sent in tanks to disarm them."

1 Did that problem ever change? Were the paramilitaries active

2 throughout the war, or did Mladic succeed in getting a unified command

3 together, or do you know?

4 A. Let me tell you what I do know. It won't be a complete answer.

5 There were some paramilitaries under the command of the Red Berets and the

6 Ministry of the Interior in Serbia, and they continued to operate

7 independently of the VRS I think right along to the end of the war. So

8 they are, however, under somebody's command. They are not operating

9 completely independently. I think I could probably find examples of

10 paramilitary forces that operated completely on their own after 1992, but

11 not many. There were paramilitary forces integrated into the VRS, and

12 they would often take on the most difficult assignments, which is somewhat

13 in contradiction to what you just read because they would, sometimes, be

14 better fighters than the ordinary conscript. And so on the front lines of

15 Sarajevo, you could encounter these paramilitary groups dressed up in

16 their colourful uniforms and so forth. They were simply part of the

17 operational VRS army. So I assume they were under their commands. If

18 you're talking about a paramilitary force operating completely on its own

19 after 1992, with the exception maybe of the Yellow Wasps in Eastern

20 Bosnia, I can't -- I must say I don't think there were many of them, if

21 any.

22 Q. If we look at DB373, this is annex 27 to the CIA volume two

23 document. It begins at page 303. I know you're familiar with this

24 particular section, Professor Shoup. It's the section of the report that

25 really deals very specifically with the Bosnian Serb takeover in April of

1 1992. It speaks of what has been a lot of the evidence in this Court. It

2 talks about Kljuc, it talks about Prijedor. It talks about Sanski Most.

3 And it talks about ethnic cleansing and sets that out in some detail. The

4 only part of that that I want to bring to your attention and have you

5 comment on, because the rest of it is quite well-known to this Trial

6 Chamber, is the last paragraph on page 306 which the CIA report calls "the

7 final analysis." And again, I was speaking too fast.

8 Page 306, the report says this: "The Bosnian Serb Army undertook

9 these ethnic cleansing operations because it believed the Muslim

10 population posed an armed threat or could act as a fifth column during the

11 war with the Bosnian government. The VRS focussed on seizing weapons from

12 the population and on detaining military-aged males supports this

13 analysis, that the Bosnian Serb's paranoia greatly exaggerated this

14 supposed threat does not mean that the VRS did not believe it. The few

15 armed Muslim groups that managed to form and survive the Serb assaults and

16 make sporadic guerrilla attacks on VRS and MUP forces in the region

17 inflamed this paranoia still further".

18 Setting aside a quarrel that we might have with the use of the

19 language there, what comment can you make that might help us understand

20 that a little better.

21 A. Thank you. Let me take a step backward. We have spoken already

22 of the fact that there was tension between the politicalness and the

23 military side of the Serb movement during the war. I'm not sure that we

24 mentioned that General Mladic and other officers were brought up in what

25 can be loosely called the partisan tradition. That tradition did not lend

1 itself to, let's say, ethnic cleansing for the sake of ethnic cleansing.

2 So it has been a puzzle to me why the VRS would engage in ethnic cleansing

3 operations, as this report clearly shows, when many of the leading

4 officers really had not been raised to treat civilians, Muslims, or

5 whoever in this very brutal fashion. This provides the first evidence

6 that I have seen, providing that I believe the CIA's competence here, that

7 the VRS was really -- had a military objective in participating in that

8 ethnic cleansing.

9 Let me give you some proof of that. If you look at other parts of

10 Bosnia, you will find that exactly the same tactics were being used, and

11 my guess is they did have -- not a guess, but my knowledge is they had a

12 military component. Let me give you the example of the town of Tarcin,

13 which you perhaps know, T-a-r-c-i-n, south of Sarajevo. This is one of

14 the towns that struck me in my research because Serbs were all rounded up

15 and pressed into a silo where they were kept for the duration of the war

16 in very abysmal conditions. It sounded very much like just what was

17 happening here in parts of northern Bosnia to the Muslims. Then I

18 realised that there was a strategic reason for this. This was a vital

19 part of the Muslim front, the place where the Muslim front from the south

20 touched on Sarajevo. And so they had cleaned out the civilian population

21 to assure the security of that area. And my guess is with further

22 investigation, you would find the Croatians doing the same thing in Kupres

23 or the Muslims doing the same thing in other places. In other words, this

24 is something that happened all over Bosnia.

25 Now, having said that, there are -- here's an account in which

1 there is brutality. The particular example that is given here of a

2 village involves persuading the peasants, deceiving them to go out and

3 then they are being shot. Just simply -- the women, children are being

4 thrown into a ditch. If the VRS is doing that, then I don't understand.

5 This is seemingly in contradiction to what we read right here. But might

6 I end with a little anecdote to illustrate the role of civilians in this

7 war because this is a true story of a student of mine who was from Bosnia.

8 At the time of the siege of Tuzla by the Serb forces, he had

9 relatives on -- who were inside the city of Tuzla, and he had relatives,

10 Serbs, who were outside bombarding the city. The Serbs who were outside

11 the city telephoned his father in United States who in turn telephoned his

12 relatives inside the city of Tuzla, and the people who were bombarding the

13 city then asked him, how did we do? And then the man telephoned his

14 friends inside Tuzla to find out where the shots had landed, and then

15 telephoned them back where they were in the village to tell them how

16 accurate their artillery was. It sounds bizarre, but in effect it shows

17 you the difficulties in separating the civilian from the military actions

18 in this civil war.

19 Q. I want to go back now, and this relates, I think, to your earlier

20 testimony about civil war and the civil war versus the internationality of

21 this conflict. Page 275 in DB371A, the CIA makes this conclusion. It's

22 in the right-hand column just under "help from Big Brother." "Among the

23 many misconceptions about the VJ," that would be the JNA, "VRS

24 relationship, most striking is that large numbers of Yugoslav Army ground

25 troops fought in Bosnia during the conflict and that the VRS was under the

1 command JNA/VJ general staff. There is no evidence to support this notion

2 despite frequent assertions by ill-informed journalists."

3 Does that support your conclusion?

4 A. That supports what I know about the situation. I'm very

5 interested to see that the CIA was -- exhaustively studied this problem

6 comes to this conclusion. They can trace where every unit was during the

7 entire war. I don't know how they did it. Aerial surveillance or

8 something. The whole two volumes are just filled with these charts to

9 show you where each part of the army was. So this is certainly correct.

10 Let me not dwell on that except to give you another example. In

11 our volume we say that in the early years of the war, in 1992, when the

12 Bosnian Serbs were cut off from Serbia because the corridor between Banja

13 Luka to the west and Bijeljina and Serbia to the east had been cut by

14 Croatian and Muslim forces, that an offensive to retake the corridor was

15 launched by the Serbs. This was a desperate effort because they were

16 completely isolated in Western Bosnia. We write that this had to have

17 been done with the assistance of the JNA -- with the JNA -- it was no

18 longer the JNA but... we couldn't conceive of how they could operate that

19 successfully. The CIA says the Serb armies did it all themselves, with no

20 help from Belgrade whatsoever. I was astounded when I read that because

21 it was so vitally important for the Serb cause. And this raised my

22 suspicions as always that Belgrade's attitude towards Bosnia was always

23 very manipulative and always looking at their own self-interests first for

24 one reason or another.

25 Q. I want to do another subject change now. I'm now going to start

1 referring to some of the materials from the Netherlands Institute of War

2 Documentation. Before I do that, I want to know if you have had occasion

3 to look over those materials at some length; and second, if so, give the

4 Court your impression of the value of those materials, the scholarship

5 that went into them, that sort of thing.

6 A. I have not read all of that report. It is immense, as you know.

7 And many of you who have looked at can appreciate that. I find it a

8 breakthrough in our knowledge of the Bosnian situation. They summarise

9 things beautifully. They go into details. They seem to have unlimited

10 resources, you know, to track things down. And I consider that to be the

11 most authoritative and the most informative research on Bosnia bar none.

12 I'm gratified to see that the things that Professor Burg and I wrote

13 seemed to have been more or less confirmed, but we certainly didn't go

14 into as much detail as they did. And I would in particular recommend to

15 the Court the Appendix 4 by Ger Duijzings, Professor Duijzings, the

16 anthropologist, who goes into Eastern Bosnia and reconstructs everything

17 that happened there from before the war and through the war itself in

18 immense detail showing exactly how these politicians and local people were

19 relating to one another. It is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.

20 Q. There's a section near the beginning -- it's actually in

21 Appendix 5 of the report, however, near the beginning of that appendix.

22 It's in DB361 on the second page of that exhibit. And the subject matter

23 I want to discuss now has to do with the economy and what happened to the

24 economy in Yugoslavia and thus in Bosnia.

25 A. Yes, sure.

1 Q. Between 1980 and 1991. This report from the Netherlands Institute

2 speaks about -- the first of that paragraph talks about the Netherlands

3 itself being one of the oldest and most stable constitutional states in

4 the world, and one of the least violent, very little murder, very few

5 crimes of violence. But then says this: "If within a period of ten

6 years, the economy were to collapse almost completely, the central

7 government became incapable of maintaining law and order, the state

8 disintegrated and power devolved into the hands of local potentates who

9 openly encouraged the use of force. In other words, if the same were to

10 happen in the Netherlands as happened in Yugoslavia from 1980 to 1991

11 could we be so sure that no Serbian-type events would take place there."

12 This seems to indicate a really fairly dramatic downturn --

13 MS. KORNER: We're off again.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: We are. I'm sorry.

15 MS. KORNER: Ask the expert a question.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: I'll stop. You can stop objecting.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, thank you, Ms. Korner.

18 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

19 MR. ACKERMAN:

20 Q. Tell me what happened in the economy -- tell the Chamber about

21 what happened in the economy in Yugoslavia from 1980 to 1991. What

22 happened?

23 A. I'll try to be brief again. The Yugoslavia economy was in a state

24 of rapid decline throughout the whole decade of the 1980s. I won't go

25 into the details. Susan Woodward whom -- whose face I didn't know

1 yesterday wrote extensively and very brilliantly on the problems of the

2 economic decline of Yugoslavia in the 1980s.

3 The problem was much more severe in a republic like Bosnia than in

4 a republic like Slovenia with its firm contacts with Austria or with

5 Italy. I have talked to Bosnians who remember how their contacts abroad

6 were cut off. For example, they had a very thriving industry of selling

7 furniture to the United States, which was, of course, appropriate for

8 Bosnia. Well, with these economic difficulties and then the early crisis,

9 those contacts were completely cut off. Their heavy industries were

10 inappropriate to a reformed economy. They didn't make money. And so they

11 began to layoff workers massively as well. This economy in Bosnia was

12 geared towards war industries and some extraction industries of course.

13 Finally, in 1991 Milosevic imposed an embargo or sanctions against

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, economic sanctions. Why? Because Izetbegovic,

15 acting, as I said earlier, as the government almost of Bosnia had decided

16 he would remain neutral in the war in Croatia, and Milosevic was going to

17 punish him, and this is what he did. And you can imagine this was a sort

18 of final blow for this economy, all of its foreign contacts being cut off.

19 Maybe not completely all of them. A crisis in the Yugoslav economy and

20 then on top of that economic sanctions. It was a time of severe economic

21 crisis in the early 1990s.

22 Q. If these economic ties were cut off with Serbia by Milosevic's

23 actions and with Zagreb by the fact that there's a war going on in

24 Croatia --

25 A. That's right.

1 Q. -- what effect would that have had on the Krajina area that we're

2 primarily interested in here?

3 A. I won't speculate whether it would have more or less effect, let's

4 say, than in other parts of Bosnia. I just can't say really.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Korner is very happy.

6 MR. ACKERMAN:

7 Q. I want to go now to -- it's again DB361. Netherlands Institute

8 materials, page 3, about halfway down, they're talking about the effect of

9 television, but there's a part there that I'm interested in because it

10 refers to this economic situation. "Television had an almost hypnotic

11 effect. This was particularly so in Serbia." And then this: "Where the

12 population became too poor to buy newspapers."

13 A. That's right. Absolutely. Yeah.

14 Q. That strikes me as amazing that people couldn't afford newspapers.

15 Do you think that happened all over Yugoslavia, or do you know?

16 A. Yes. Oh, yes. Let me give you an example from today's Herald

17 Tribune if any of you have read it, it talks about a Russian peasant

18 situated outside of Moscow who is living alone in his little hut. He's

19 over 70 years old. Everybody has deserted him. He can hardly find

20 firewood to keep himself warm, and the only thing he has left is his

21 television set. And he watches Brazilian soap operas the whole day long.

22 I mean, this is so sad. And yet it does reflect what has happened, you

23 know, in places where people have been destitute or suffering economic

24 difficulties. All they have left is their television set.

25 Q. All right. I want to go now to the next document in the

1 Netherlands Institute materials. It's DB362. And it's page 9 of a

2 section, but it's the only page, I believe, that I have reproduced. And

3 I'm interested in just one sentence. "The population..." -- this is

4 referring to the population of Yugoslavia basically -- "The population was

5 never given the opportunity of properly coming to terms with the tragic

6 events that occurred between 1941 and 1945."

7 What is meant by, if you know, "never given the opportunity of

8 properly coming to terms" with these events?

9 A. Just briefly that of course during the communist period there was

10 no serious analysis by the historians or otherwise of what had really

11 happened in Yugoslavia. You would find, and if you read Politika or you

12 read Borba during these periods, there would be articles interspersed of

13 how the partisans had done this or that. But basically I can testify from

14 my own experience, people remembered what had happened within their own

15 experience or that of their families. But nothing else really.

16 Tremendously great ignorance. Now, I won't say that's true of Slovenia,

17 perhaps. There were differences there. They had newspapers from abroad

18 and so on. But certainly in Serbia, this was true.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Serbia or --

20 THE WITNESS: In Serbia, yeah. In Belgrade, after all, which was

21 flooded with all kinds of foreigners, and so on. But can I just make one

22 more remark. I would warn the Court that just from our western point of

23 view, the idea that knowledge is somehow going to provide a better and

24 more informed way of looking at things doesn't necessarily hold true. I

25 have had long, long discussions over many, many years as they say trying

1 to straighten out the crooked Drina River, and I've never succeeded. So

2 all of my input went basically in vain and whether a lot of enlightened

3 information would have penetrated what were basically very ethnically

4 rooted positions on what happened in World War II, I'm rather dubious.

5 Mr. Ackerman.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Appropriate moment, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. Thank you, Professor

8 Shoup. We'll have a 25-minute break starting from now. Thank you.

9 --- Recess taken at 5.44 p.m.

10 --- On resuming at 6.15 p.m.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Before we proceed, Mr. Ackerman, I have been

12 asked by the witness to inform you that he, himself, will call Professor

13 Hayden and ask him to email you or to send you the document, so I don't

14 suppose you have to trouble yourself.

15 MS. KORNER: I think it's preferable, Your Honour, as Professor

16 Shoup's in the middle of evidence, that it's Mr. Ackerman who reminds

17 Professor Hayden that he's supposed to be providing his unpublished --

18 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm just being an ambassador. I'm just saying -- I

19 expected a reaction either you from or Mr. Ackerman.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: I haven't the first idea how to reach Professor

21 Hayden, Your Honour. None whatsoever.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Do you think you're able to finish today?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour. I think so.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's not waste more time.

25 MR. ACKERMAN:

1 Q. You had spoken to us earlier about the -- when the nationalist

2 parties took over, this whole concept of carving up Bosnia. There's a

3 couple of references to that I want to refer you to. I'm looking now at

4 DB366. This is from the Netherlands Institute report. I'm at page

5 number 8. This is talking about a September 1990 SDA meeting in Nova

6 Kasaba. And at the top of that page 8, the following language

7 appears: "Nonetheless, the meeting highlighted what was perhaps the most

8 important issue at stake in the elections, both for the SDA and the SDS,

9 control over the local economy. The SDA representative from Zvornik

10 complained that all the income generated by the local aluminum plant,

11 Benicia, went to Serbia. He promised that the first thing he would do

12 after winning the elections was to bring the company under his control so

13 he could start financing the arms needed to fight the Serbs."

14 Now, I take it that's an example of what you were talking about,

15 about the effort to take control over the assets of the various

16 municipalities' economies. Am I correct or am I wrong?

17 MS. KORNER: It's still a leading question, and I renew my

18 objection to all of this.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Your objection is sustained, Ms. Korner.

20 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm going back to the documents. What,

21 may I ask, has what happened in Benicia got to do with the autonomous

22 region of Krajina. This gentleman knows nothing about the autonomous

23 region of Krajina. He made absolutely clear. What Your Honours are

24 dealing with are -- is the events in the Autonomous Region of Krajina. I

25 understand the general background that Mr. Ackerman is asking Professor

1 Shoup to give, but this is specifics. Now, Your Honour, I do say this is

2 irrelevant. I'm going to at the end of this renew my objection to the

3 admission of any of these documents. But for the moment, I cannot see how

4 this can be relevant.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: So there was another part to it. Mr. Ackerman will

6 understand what I am going to say, that this statement attributed to

7 Mr. -- whoever it is, the SDA representative from Zvornik, does not

8 mention only the taking over or control of this company as part of what

9 you have suggested to be in line with what the witness said. But also, as

10 being a means to an end.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Absolutely, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: So just read that paragraph and rephrase your

13 question completely. But do take into account what I have said and what

14 Ms. Korner has objected to.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I really need to respond to that objection

16 because in my view it's not well taken at all. Nothing happened in Bosnia

17 in a vacuum in 1992. People in Banja Luka knew what was happening in

18 Srebrenica, people in Srebrenica knew what was happening in Banja Luka.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: That's a statement you are making, Mr. Ackerman,

20 which could be founded or it could also be a gratuitous one. And I will

21 not comment on that. But I would rather prefer that you restricted

22 yourself to the statement which we will accept, of course, that nothing

23 happened in a vacuum, neither in Bosnia, in the Krajina, nor elsewhere.

24 Anyway, shall we skip this and go to the next question,

25 Mr. Ackerman.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

2 Q. My question is this, Professor: Did the events that were

3 happening in Bosnia in 1991 or 1992 happen in a vacuum, or did things that

4 happened in Western Bosnia become known in the Krajina and things that

5 happened in the Krajina become known in Western Bosnia? In other words,

6 was there communication throughout the country? Was the telephone service

7 working, things of that nature?

8 A. Certainly, the telephone service was working. People would be

9 informing each other of what was going on. I think that a much more

10 important point to make is that such incidents as this one were rapidly

11 transmitted to the Belgrade press which then rapidly transmitted it back

12 into all of Serbia. In other words, much of the information, as I say in

13 my report, that people were receiving at this point was from sources

14 outside of Bosnia itself. And the Serbian press would be very quick to

15 pick up on anything that would, you know, seed distrust or anxiety among

16 the Serb population. I don't know if they did in this particular

17 instance, but this is a classic case of the kind of thing that would

18 appear in Vecene Novoste the next day.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Only that the people were too poor to afford buying

20 the papers.

21 THE WITNESS: Well, that doesn't stop people from buying the paper

22 and passing on the information to others, especially in a city like Banja

23 Luka which is of course full of newspapers.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Let's go ahead, Mr. Ackerman.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I'm really quite hesitant about this

1 presentation because I'm starting to have the feeling the Court is

2 absolutely disinterested in the history of what went on during this

3 conflict.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: I haven't stopped you, Mr. Ackerman. I haven't

5 stopped you. But you all realise that I can quite understand and I accept

6 first and foremost, even before everyone else, I suppose, that what

7 happened in Bosnia did not happen in a vacuum. But that's not the

8 beginning and the end of the story.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, the Chamber or at least Your Honour seemed

10 quite sympathetic to the objection that what happened in Western Bosnia

11 has nothing to do with the Krajina, and I think that's not true. I think

12 it has a great deal to do with it.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: I did not say that. Don't attribute to me what I

14 didn't say. I never said that. Go to the transcript and see what I

15 said. I said that the objection that Ms. Korner was raising so far as it

16 was an objection directed to the question as such and the way it was put

17 was a valid one, and I was accepting the objection, sustaining the

18 objection. And I also pointed out to you that although your question was

19 referring to only one part of -- or was referring to one part only of what

20 the witness had stated earlier, there was a second element to the

21 statement of this gentleman, the SDA representative from Zvornik. And you

22 could not possibly in one question separate the one from the other. Your

23 question was directed to the previous statement of the expert that the

24 Serbs and the Muslims were more interested in sharing the spoils or

25 grabbing what was there to grab. But at no time did the witness mention

1 that this was being done with the ulterior motive that this gentleman from

2 Zvornik specifically refers to. So I hope you understand what I'm saying.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: I do. Thank you.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: So go ahead. And I'm not putting any restraints on

5 you.

6 MR. ACKERMAN:

7 Q. Professor, I remain interested in the economic aspects of what was

8 happening, and I want to now refer you to another section which we find.

9 It's DB369, Appendix 4, final remarks, it's called. And it's about

10 halfway down.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: What page?

12 MR. ACKERMAN: It's page 3 of DB369.

13 Q. And Duijzings is now sort of summing up and making his final

14 remarks in this book that he basically has written. He talks about the

15 dramatic economic and political crisis of the 1980s after Tito's death and

16 the ways these affected the situation on the ground in a small area such

17 as Srebrenica. And then he says this: "In all practical terms, the

18 economic crisis was dramatic. Reducing salaries to a fraction of what

19 they were only a decade earlier, and leaving people unemployed and deeply

20 insecure about their existence and future. From the Serb perspective, the

21 economic crisis was exacerbated by the threat of political marginalisation

22 resulting from the demographic growth and social and political

23 emancipation of the Bosnian Muslim nation. Local Serbs were highly

24 susceptible to propaganda from Belgrade which subsumed all these processes

25 under the label Islamic fundamentalism. However, it was the fight over

1 the economic assets in times of uncertainty and economic crisis which

2 formed the crucial background to many of the conflicts. History was a

3 symbolic resource retrieved from nationalist folklore. It was the most

4 effective tool in mobilising the population."

5 Now, my question is this: Duijzings is talking there about what

6 effect these things had on Srebrenica. From your research and reading,

7 was this a Bosnia-wide effect? Did it affect all of Bosnia-Herzegovina in

8 much this way?

9 A. The -- let me say broadly I agree completely with

10 Professor Duijzings's conclusions, which I think are very balanced and

11 which apply to all of Bosnia, especially because he does not pinpoint

12 anything peculiar to the Eastern Bosnian situation so much as talking

13 about broad-based problems, the economic crisis, the possible political

14 marginalisation of the Serbs, fear of Islamic fundamentalism in which

15 history is a symbolic resource, all of these things apply to a Bosnia

16 which is in extreme, extreme distress. And I must say really frankly, I'm

17 not surprised that everyone took this attitude of, sort of, "sauve qui

18 peut," save yourself. I don't see anything very strange about it. It was

19 cloaked in nationalist rhetoric, and it had many very dangerous people

20 taking advantage of that situation. But I think there's just no question,

21 and these are the elements. I would maybe juggle them a little bit

22 differently. But the crisis was profound.

23 Might I just say a word or two more on that while you search for

24 your document.

25 Q. Yes, go right ahead.

1 A. Yes. One thing that I have -- I think that can be overlooked is

2 that after the elections of December 1991, Bosnia was simply not the same

3 place. It had enjoyed a cultural -- multiculturalism and even

4 multiethnicity that had never threatened to spill over into the realm of

5 real power because the party held it. Now, after 1991, 110 different

6 municipalities are all trying to grab power for themselves. The outcome

7 is a disaster. My own opinion, and that's -- but I can state an opinion

8 because I've thought about this for a very long time, is that sooner or

9 later Bosnia would have lost her earlier multiethnic character and

10 national regions would have emerged which would have, even within a

11 Bosnian state, had to come to terms with each other. This was the

12 inevitable outcome of this terrible disaster that -- the disappearance of

13 the old Bosnia, which we all loved very much.

14 Q. Duijzings finally concludes this way, page 4 of DB363, speaking

15 about his approach to this topic: "My approach is based on the

16 fundamental presumption that people make history in two related ways:

17 One, by imagining and constructing a past which is relevant for the

18 present; and two, by the way they choose to act, taking among other things

19 their visions of the past into account. It underscores that history is

20 the work of people who act and interact with different motives and

21 interests in mind, the chemistry of which leads to results which are often

22 unintended in their final outcome."

23 Do you agree with this approach?

24 A. Absolutely. I think this is what has informed the research that I

25 have undertaken, having known both -- all sides of this problem. And I

1 would simply say that that research is sometimes misunderstood as being

2 too tolerant of one side or the other. It's not true. I think

3 Professor Duijzings' accomplishment here is to show that you can uncover

4 this beast, you can look at every side of this issue, as he has done in

5 depth, in amazing depth, and really come out with this kind of very

6 nuanced understanding. I'm enthusiastic about this conclusion. I think

7 it should be something that should be in print rather than hidden in

8 electronic form someplace.

9 Q. Finally, I want to look for just a moment at DB370 and page 3 of

10 that document. "Though it is generally agreed" - this is the last

11 paragraph on that page - "that a knowledge of history is important for a

12 proper understanding of the background to the Yugoslav conflict, it is

13 very difficult to explain the wars solely on the basis of historical

14 analogies without taking the recent power struggle between the political

15 elites into account. It is clear, however, that the various parties have

16 misused history to justify their aggressive policies towards other ethnic

17 groups and to cloak the real political objectives which generally involve

18 boundary changes at the expense of their neighbours."

19 I think you can elaborate on that just a bit.

20 A. Again, these are the very considered conclusions of a group of

21 researchers who have done a magnificent job at the Netherlands Institute

22 for War Documentation. I find it, again, a very, very profound and very

23 careful statement of the case. I would, however, like to remind the Court

24 that underlying the clash between these various power elites is the

25 national question. How should states be formed? Should an area be

1 permitted to secede and join another state, or should it not? This has

2 been the problem that faced Yugoslavia and tore her apart, and this was

3 the problem in Bosnia. It was a profound difference in the view of the

4 Serbian leadership, if -- you can call them extreme if you wish, but they

5 believed this, that their portions of Bosnia should have the right to

6 secede and to join the "matica", the motherland. The Bosnians had this

7 profound feeling that the boundaries of Bosnia were sacrosanct, that they

8 would be able to live in that Bosnia with the Serbs and Croatians.

9 Ultimately, they would become the titular nationality. These were the

10 fundamental issues that tore Bosnia apart. Maybe there was selfishness

11 and ambition and misuse of history on all sides, but the underlying goals

12 of these groups were clearly best understood in terms that I've tried to

13 put them forth to you now, that is profound disagreements over the state

14 of Bosnia.

15 Q. This quote concludes with that language "to cloak the real

16 political objectives which generally involve boundary changes at the

17 expense of their neighbours." One of the questions that intrigues me is:

18 Was there a difference between objectives that people at the top in

19 leadership might have from those that a soldier on the ground in Bosnia

20 might have? I mean, is there any indication that those objectives passed

21 all the way down to people on the ground, or were they pursuing different

22 objectives at times?

23 A. That's an interesting question. You will pardon the pause, but

24 part of the answer, Mr. Ackerman, is right here in the book. Chapter 4,

25 the war on the ground, you certainly know that concluding passage here, or

1 almost-concluding passage, by the officer Milovan Stankovic. With your

2 permission, I would just like to read his quotation, one paragraph. It

3 won't take long. That's page 185. "Our policy has never. "... And so

4 forth.

5 Q. Yes.

6 A. "Here is a man who may be discouraged." It's 1994, and he speaks

7 bluntly. "Our policy has never defined the basic aims of the struggle.

8 Political or national or economic or regional aims. It has never been

9 stated of what state it is, of what size, and what cities are to be taken.

10 The policy says that the border is as far as the army boot can reach. To

11 say the least, frivolous, a boot can easily slip. When we took Doboj

12 during the first days of the war we formed" and so forth. I won't go any

13 further. And look over -- what he says over here on the next page, the

14 second paragraph on page 186. It is one of the most illuminating

15 statements that we found in our research. He says: "Military defeat is a

16 coverup for policy. What? I will give you one example that staggered me.

17 I said that out of our common interests, we should hand over some

18 territories to the enemy, but let it be after the war and only under

19 condition that our people are compensated. One people's deputy, I will

20 not name him, says to me that do you think that that is the -- in the

21 interest of the state for a man to wait until the end of the war and then

22 to give him with a committee and say his house is worth 150.000 German

23 marks. It works out much better if he moves out" --

24 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please slow down. We cannot

25 follow you at this speed.

1 THE WITNESS: "Do you think that it is in the interests of the

2 state for a man to wait until the end of the war and then you have to give

3 him with a committee and say that his house is worth 150 thousand German

4 marks. It works out much better if he moves out with only his shirt on

5 his back. Then he will be happy with whatever he gets in the end. I

6 cannot reconcile myself to such games."

7 It's a profoundly revealing of the problems that were facing the

8 Karadzic regime at that point in the war.

9 MR. ACKERMAN:

10 Q. Professor, I have one final question: One of the things I asked

11 you to do was to consult your library and look at the major published

12 works, published books about the events in Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995 to

13 see if you found Brdjanin's name in any of those publications. Did you

14 perform that task?

15 A. I did that. I searched all my own personal library, which is

16 extensive. I didn't find Brdjanin's name in the index of one of the books

17 that I searched.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: That's all I have. Thank you very much.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Will you finish in five minutes, Ms. Korner?

20 MS. KORNER: Of course. But I wouldn't mind asking a few

21 preliminary questions, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead. You have five minutes. I won't deprive

23 you.

24 Cross-examined by Ms. Korner:

25 Q. Professor, do you know who Radoslav Brdjanin is?

1 A. I can't understand you, please. More slowly.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: He has become part of the interpreters' team now.

3 MS. KORNER:

4 Q. Do you know who Radoslav Brdjanin is?

5 A. Yes. He was a member of the crisis committee of the ARK and

6 served in various posts before he became -- before he became -- not

7 president, vice-president of the --

8 Q. And as your library contains absolutely no reference to him in any

9 book, how did you find that out?

10 A. I only found it out through the materials that I was sent and that

11 I've used here. Frankly, I can't remember when that precise knowledge

12 came to me. But I think it was probably only after I got here. Mind you,

13 I could have found it out other ways because your point is well taken. If

14 I had wanted to, I'm sure I would have found his exact position by going

15 into LexisNexis, for example, and reading some of the dispatches from BBC

16 and so on from earlier times. I didn't bother to do that. But certainly,

17 you're correct, I could have found out what his position was.

18 Q. Have you ever read the indictment in this case?

19 A. No, I have not.

20 Q. So you haven't any idea what Mr. Brdjanin did, apart from his

21 positions. Is that right?

22 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I would object that the indictment describes

23 anything Mr. Brdjanin did. It's a bunch of allegations that they have to

24 prove.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: It doesn't describe anything he did, and I suggest

2 that he didn't do any of those things.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, please, just rephrase your -- that part of your

4 question, Ms. Korner.

5 MS. KORNER:

6 Q. You do not know, Professor, what the allegations are against

7 Radoslav Brdjanin?

8 A. No, I certainly do not.

9 Q. You do not know what the evidence in this case has been?

10 A. Against Brdjanin?

11 Q. Yes.

12 A. No, I do not. Wait a minute, I take that back. I have read

13 Mr. Donia's -- some of the testimony of Professor Donia. In the course of

14 that testimony, Mr. Brdjanin's name arises on occasion. I can tell you

15 that much, yes.

16 Q. Have you ever met Mr. Brdjanin?

17 A. No, no. No, I've never met him.

18 Q. If you can do that, Professor Shoup, can you tell us, please, this

19 Court, what is the purpose of the evidence that you have been giving for

20 the last day or two days, if you include the film?

21 A. I think it's extremely important to make a point, and that is that

22 Bosnia had become a totally dysfunctional place after the elections of

23 1991. As I said earlier, people were trying to respond to this situation

24 to get by as best they could. And that the Serbs in turn were taking

25 actions which were viewed as being somehow aggressive or somehow

1 inexplicable, but they were not in that context. I don't approve of

2 them. I think they went the wrong direction. But the context shows that

3 their response was not surprising, and secondly, in respect to things such

4 as ethnic cleansing and so forth, that these things were happening on the

5 other side as well, to what extent more or less we can talk about if you

6 wish to pursue that subject.

7 Q. Well, there are two things that arise out of that answer. The

8 first is this: You are not trying to suggest, are you, that because

9 Bosnia was dysfunctional that, therefore, excuses the commission of war

10 crimes by individuals?

11 A. I am trying to suggest that war crimes must be sifted through a

12 Balkan situation and not for us to stand off and try to apply standards

13 and imagine the Bosnian situation as one that we're more comfortable with,

14 that is, one that is not as complicated and so on. I think that's what

15 was done during the war itself. We had to talk about a war of aggression

16 because we felt more comfortable with it. No, there were bad people on

17 all sides. Until we can come to terms with that and the Court can act in

18 that context, I would be very upset. And I think we've made a great deal

19 of progress today in providing a background by which the Judges can make

20 that kind of judgement.

21 Q. I'm sorry. Do I understand you to say you are saying that the

22 dysfunction in Bosnia, the Balkan situation, does excuse the commission of

23 war crimes?

24 A. No, I am not. I'm saying quite the opposite. I am saying that

25 there were war crimes committed that you might not even have known about.

1 I have a whole section in my report which you perfectly well know about

2 victimisation and strategies of victimisation, and nobody, to the best of

3 my knowledge, and I apologise to the Court if I'm wrong, has considered

4 the horrible crimes that were committed by people firing on their own

5 civilians. I have seen no sign of anyone --

6 Q. Professor, you're becoming rather excited --

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Korner, this is becoming impossible for the

8 interpreters. I really sympathise with you, and I apologise myself. This

9 must be terrible for you. So I think we need to stop here, Ms. Korner.

10 MS. KORNER: Just one last point, Your Honour, if I may.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: We call it a day after that.

12 MS. KORNER:

13 Q. Professor, can I explain to you, which clearly was not explained

14 to you by Mr. Ackerman, this Court is not here to decide upon whether the

15 marketplace massacre in Sarajevo was caused by the Muslims firing on their

16 own sides or the Serbs. That was a subject of another trial. Do you

17 understand that?

18 A. I'm sorry, but I disagree. I have to use that as an example of

19 the fact that my approach is meant to forward the interests of justice,

20 and you implied that my approach was not forwarding the interests of

21 justice. I certainly take profound exception to that. I am a veteran of

22 that part of the world. I'm terribly distressed by what happened. And I

23 feel that people to act fairly and correctly must have all the details in

24 front of them. It's as simple as that.

25 Q. All right. So finally, your view is that if a Court is going to

1 look at allegations of crimes committed by a Serb in Banja Luka, it should

2 equally be looking at the same time at allegations relating to Sarajevo or

3 elsewhere. Is that what you're saying?

4 A. That's certainly what I'm saying. But it's not all that I'm

5 saying. The strategy of victimisation is one meant to deceive people.

6 There is a great deal of deceptive information. Some of this applies to

7 what Karadzic was doing and others in the region of Banja Luka itself.

8 There is a tremendous propaganda operation here. I'm not taking the Serb

9 position as, you know, "we're all misunderstood." I really reject that

10 completely out of hand. But anything that happened that concerns the

11 Serbs in Banja Luka or this whole region of Bosanska Krajina has to be

12 looked at in terms of the efforts of those who want to make it look

13 different than it really is. This is the Balkan way of doing things. You

14 are trying to always make yourself look like the victim and to distort the

15 actions of the other person. And I plea with the Court not to be fooled

16 by this kind of thing. It applies to everybody, I'm sure. I say in my

17 report that Serbs have also issued false statements. I didn't hesitate to

18 tell you where in that tape that we saw yesterday there were mistakes, and

19 I'll give you another example of one that I thought was an egregious error

20 in that tape when --

21 THE INTERPRETER: Can you please slow down. Interpreters can't

22 follow.

23 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. But there's a moment -- I wonder if

24 anybody else noticed it. There's a moment in the tape where they talk

25 about Mostar. Perhaps I could ask you -- it's out of order to ask you.

1 Do you remember when they talked about Mostar, and they said that the

2 liquidation of the Serbs took place in Mostar, and then they went on to

3 say -- and then someone came on the tape who was an expert or something

4 and said, "This fierce fighting took place in Mostar, people were

5 destroying each other. It was far worse than Bosnia." When you listened

6 to tape it sounded as though it was the Serbs who had been liquidated in

7 Mostar. Of course they weren't liquidated. They were driven out but they

8 weren't liquidated. And the fight that this expert is talking about is

9 between the Muslims and the Croats. That's the kind of thing you're

10 constantly contending with on both sides in this whole procedure, and

11 that's why I plea for careful examination of all the evidence.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. We stop here for today. We are meeting

13 tomorrow in the morning. I can't confirm the courtroom because I don't

14 remember whether it's this courtroom or Courtroom Number II. If we are

15 sitting in Courtroom II -- I can tell you actually; I have it here.

16 Courtroom III, we are sitting here. So tomorrow morning at 9.00.

17 Do you think you'll finish, Ms. Korner, tomorrow?

18 MS. KORNER: I want to make it absolutely clear I will try, but

19 the professor simply must not go on like this. Because the longer the

20 answers, the longer he's likely to be here.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, but at least we have got the message of -- the

22 underlying motive.

23 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour. I may well tomorrow morning ask

24 to repeat my original submission about this evidence.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, feel free to do that, provided it's not a mere

1 repetition of a question seeking a mere repetition of an --

2 MS. KORNER: But, Your Honour, may I just mention that it has

3 become absolutely, as you say, clear what the Professor's agenda is, and

4 tu quoque is not a defence.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: No, no. But I suppose Mr. Ackerman knows as well.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: That is absolutely not clear that is what his

7 agenda is. It is not his agenda. His agenda is to give you a historical

8 factual background from which you can make reasonable judgements. He has

9 said it. He didn't say -- he denied that tu quoque has anything to do

10 with what he is doing here, and he isn't. And I object to Ms. Korner

11 making these submissions to you about her attitude about his testimony. I

12 didn't do that with her witnesses. She shouldn't do it to mine. She

13 should ask her questions, get her answers, and be satisfied with that.

14 This is just getting beyond --

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's not discuss further in the presence of the

16 witness, Mr. Ackerman. Tomorrow morning, 9.00. I thank you and have a

17 nice evening.

18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 6.53 p.m.,

19 to be reconvened on Friday, the 6th day of

20 February, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

21

22

23

24

25